Kde zpívají raci – Owens Delia (2022)

This Czech-language novel follows Kya Clark, a girl surrounded by rumours in the quiet coastal town of Barkley Cove, North Carolina, where people call her the swamp girl. After her mother leaves one August morning, her older siblings gradually depart too, and eventually her father fails to return from yet another night of drinking, leaving Kya completely alone. Intelligent and sensitive, she lives in harmony with nature, relying on herself in the marsh she calls home. She watches herons, collects shells and catches fish, while the gulls and Tate, a boy who shares her love of nature, become her closest companions. Tate teaches her to read, and they form an inseparable friendship, but he eventually leaves, and Kya is alone once again. Her wild beauty captivates Chase Andrews, a young man from town, and a new life seems to open before her. When Chase's body is found dead in the marsh on 13 October 1969, the townspeople suspect Kya of murder. The marsh knows everything about death, however, and knows that death is not always a tragedy. This beautiful ode to nature is the story of an abandoned girl learning to trust people, combined with a mysterious murder investigation and a surprising ending. Delia Owens reminds us that childhood shapes us for life and that we are all subject to nature's extraordinary secrets.