Adrift: A Novel

Lisa Brideau

May 2023 · Sourcebooks, Inc.

About this ebook

Evergreen Award Winner

The Strand Critics Awards Best Debut Nominee

Crime Writers of Canada Best First Novel Award Finalist

"Crackles with urgency and humanity...a book made to meet the moment. A must read." —Katie Lattari, author of Dark Things I Adore

For fans of The Last Thing He Told Me comes a page-turning thriller about hidden identities and the terrifying realities of climate change.

The truth won't always set you free...

Ess wakes up alone on a sailboat in the remote Pacific Northwest with no memory of who she is or how she got there. She finds a note, but it's more warning than comfort: Start over. Don't make yourself known. Don't look back.

Ess must have answers. She sails over a turbulent ocean to a town hundreds of miles away that, she hopes, might offer insight. The chilling clues she uncovers point to a desperate attempt at erasing her former life. But why? And someone is watching her...someone who knows she must never learn her truth.

In Ess's world, the earth is precariously balanced at a climate tipping point, and she is perched at the edge of a choice: which life does she want? The one taken from her—and the dangerous secret that was buried—or the new one she can make for herself?

A galvanizing riddle that is just as unmooring as it seems, this sharp character-driven odyssey explores a future challenged by our quickly changing world and the choices we must make to save what matters most.

Ratings and reviews

Highly recommending! It had me hooked from the very beginning. Extremely well written, entertaining, and thought provoking! Thoughts about how our world could look in the near future; about extreme PTSD therapy (pros and cons for it); about how we define our SELF. Lisa Brideau, looking forward to your next novel please!

I loved the setting and the pace which gradually picks up through the novel. Overall this is a story of hope and friendship with elements of suspense to keep things spicy, and some pretty realistic cli-fi.

A fast read that draws you in and keeps you there. Nice character development, and the climate changed near future she describes hits chillingly close to home. A great read.