Beasts of the Sea

<p><b>"A sprawling, seething epic" Lucy Steeds, winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize</b><br><b><br>"As deep and profound as the sea itself" Philip Hoare</b><br><br><b>"Almost hypnotically readable" <i>Guardian </i> </b><br><br><b>"Remarkable" <i>The Times<br></i><br>1741. The crew of Vitus Bering's ill-starred Great Northern Expedition are shipwrecked off a remote, uncharted island. </b>With no hope of rescue, they give in to despair. Until they discover the flesh of a huge marine mammal that feeds in herds on the kelp in the bay.<br><br><b>1859. The Russian colony of Alaska is on the brink of collapse.</b> Governor Hampus Furuhjelm takes solace in the quest for a unique artefact: a complete skeleton of what is now known as Steller's Sea Cow, rumoured to have disappeared a hundred years before.<br><br><b>Even extinct, the sea cow will continue to shape lives and destinies,</b> from the woman charged with sketching its likeness from its bones, to the expert egg restorer who will refurbish those same bones a century later.<br><br>A tribute to an iconic lost creature, and an adventure through three centuries of scientific exploration, <i>Beasts of the Sea</i> charts the unseen consequences of grand human ambitions and the urge to resurrect what we, in our ignorance, have destroyed.<br><br><b>Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston</b></p>