T. C. Boyle returns to the Channel Islands for his latest work of historical fiction, which is comprised of two short novels. In the first, set in 1888, Marantha Waters moves to the island with her husband and daughter to run a sheep farm, with the hope that the climate will cure Marantha’s consumption. In the second, set in the 1930s, Elise Lester and her husband, the latter shell-shocked during World War I, take over the land.