Emma watched her mother's kayak disappear among icebergs in the Arctic Sea. Six years later, her brother, who had not spoken since their mother was lost, warns Emma of the curse of death that she brought to anyone who looked on her face-before tragedy befalls him too.

Emma consigns herself to a solitary life at sea, where she can do no more harm. After years alone, she is mysteriously drawn to land. And she docks at an island, afraid of what her arrival might mean for the welcoming man and his daughter waving from the jetty.

But who knows where our stories begin and end or how they are entwined? Who knows whether now, on the island, she begins a new tale-or takes a role in a story that began generations ago with a feast in the forest, or a chest of gold coins plunged into the sea, or an orphan in a bookshop beguiled by an elusive and troubled woman?

Finegan Kruckemeyer's astonishing debut, The End and Everything Before It, is a sweeping, joyous novel about love, loss and the power of stories-an uplifting journey into our deepest humanity.