With a gift voucher burning a hole in my pocket and two half-read tomes on my bedside table, I was on the hunt for something light and fantastical - this was it! A dream-like story that takes it's time, though at times, too much.

John Carreyrou is a French/American reporter and received the 2018 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award for the investigative reporting, culminating in this publication of this book. Theranos a start-up bio-tech company, headed by Elizabeth Holmes claimed to be developing high tech, blood testing technology that would revolutionise blood testing in third world countries as well as making blood testing through simple technology available at chemists.

As part of Britain’s’ mobility Anne Glenconner’s early life was spent at Holkham Hall in the company of the landed gentry and her royal relatives and friends. She was asked to be part of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the second, the links to the royals very much part of her long life.

The debutante season and her coming out did not result in the engagement and marriage that was expected so Anne was encouraged to learn the retail pottery trade allowing her the freedom to travel and interact with all sorts of people.

This is a debut novel by Delia Owens however as a retired wildlife biologist her background enables her to write with exquisite detail of the birdlife, sea life and marshes which are the fabric of this novel set in the Northern Carolina swampland.

The main character is Kya Clark called by the locals ‘Marsh Girl’ and she lives a solitary life but a rich life with the wildlife around her providing the essentials for food and nourishment.