Isa never really knew her mother. She was, in fact, separated from her mother as a child after a traumatic event, and they haven’t spoken since then.

Isa always thought there would be time to repair the relationship. But then Isa receives a letter from her mother, who explains that if Isa is reading the letter, then she has died.

Isa’s mom then explains that, in her lifetime, she was uncovering extraordinary research about Isa’s family and their connection to the Galápagos Islands. Her vital, unfinished investigation was about a nearly-dead language called Vo’Seawa, and a myth that Isa’s ancestors once called the Myth of the Equator.

In the letter, she asks Isa to go to the Galápagos, uncover the ancient language, and finish her life’s work.

So Isa goes.

 

Isa did not expect to find her own maternal grandmother, living in hiding on the islands. Isa’s grandmother agrees to tell her the myth in its entirety, although Isa wonders how much of the myth is being invented by her spacey grandma on the spot.

But Isa is concerned to find that the myth reflects her own life quite closely, particularly one bit about a long-forgotten curse, that seems to be related to her own familial lacerations.

 

Isa must dig deep into her past and the past of her family to find healing for her own grief and ensure that she doesn’t repeat her mother’s mistakes.

This novel about generational trauma is set against the backdrop of the sparsely populated Galápagos Islands, which are enchanted, ethereal, and threatened.

Throughout the whole book, environmental anxiety is woven in with wonder. Isa falls in love with her true home right when it is meeting its demise.

But is Isa capable of helping the Galápagos, when she herself feels so broken? Why does Isa say her brother is dead, but she continually receives original, packaged miniature statues from him in the mail? Is the myth a farce, or is it a true story that can hold up against the cold, academic eye of Isa’s domineering father?

Equator the novel in the literary fiction genre is a completed manuscript of 80,000 words, as of yet without agency representation. For more information or for questions, reach out to sio@inklessagency.com.