Tegan Nia Swanson

Things We Found When the Water Went Down: A Novel Tegan Nia Swanson

A heartfelt debut novel about a young woman trying to make sense of strange artifacts and unsettling memories in an effort to find her mother

When brutish miner Hugo Mitchum is found murdered on the frozen shore of a North Country lake, Beau Caelais's local officials and town gossips alike are quick to blame Marietta Abernathy, outspoken environmental activist and angry, witchy recluse. But Marietta herself has disappeared under mysterious circumstances during a blizzard.

Living on an isolated island with her father, Mariettas sixteen-year-old daughter Lena begins sifting through her mothers journals and collected oddities in an attempt to find her.  While her fathers grief threatens to consume him and her adoptive Aunt Bea reckons with guilt and acceptance, it is the haunting town outcast Ellis Olsen who might have the most to lose if Lena fails to find her mother.

Part eco-Nordic noir, part magical realist examination of power, identity, and myth, Things We Found When the Water Went Down is a story that asks us to explore what it means to healor notafter violence.