The Eighth Skin of Esther Wilding

Two girls are running along the seaside, one always a few steps behind. "Wait for me!" cries Esther.

"Wait for me!" Esther has been asking all her life, hoping to get closer to her older sister—dazzling, enchanting, untamable.

But Aura flew to the other side of the earth and severed connections. And then she returned, unlike herself. She returned—and vanished again, this time forever. After her mysterious death, a diary was left behind. In it are seven phrases, seven related images. Seven keys to unraveling what happened to Aura.

The clues lead to a northern city where every stone whispers its story, and to islands rising from the ocean like the spine of a sleeping dragon—where everything is soaked in Aura's beloved legends about the seal people, the depths of the sea, and women's fates.

Her own mistakes and disappointments are about to drag her to the bottom, while grief, resentment, and love have intertwined into a knot that won’t let her breathe, and Esther has no choice but to follow Aura once again. But this journey Esther must take not to step into her sister's skin. But to learn to live in her own.