Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

For years, the town of Barkley Cove has told stories about the wild 'Marsh Girl' living alone out in the North Carolina wetlands - so when a local golden boy turns up dead in 1969, Kya Clark is the first person everyone suspects. But the rumours never captured who Kya actually is: a sharp, self-taught survivor who raised herself in the marsh after being abandoned as a child, finding company in gulls and an entire education in the patterns of the natural world around her. Delia Owens, herself a trained wildlife scientist, threads a slow-burning murder mystery through a genuinely beautiful coming-of-age story and a loving, detailed portrait of marshland ecology, and the combination is exactly what turned this debut novel into one of the biggest word-of-mouth bestsellers of the last decade. It's since sold more than 18 million copies and been adapted into a major film. Readers who love atmospheric literary fiction with nature writing at its core, slow-building mysteries, and stories about resilient, self-made women will understand immediately why this book became inescapable - and why people are still recommending it years later.