Belén Martínez

Is it possible to escape fate?

March 11, 2011. Nanami Tendo was forced to leave Miako, her hometown. That very day, an earthquake shattered Japan and triggered one of the deadliest tsunamis in history. She survived—but her home and her world were left in ruins.

Years later, in Kyoto, Nanami meets a strange boy who was in Miako on the day of the disaster, and who brings back ghosts and memories Nami believed she had left behind.

A heartbreaking story about life, death, hope, and family; about identity and those moments that ultimately define us as human beings.

There are borders where civilization ends and the wildest nature begins. They may seem like simple paths crossing ancient forests; the shore of a beach where the ocean cradles the land; a torii marking the entrance to a shrine. All of these places are cracks between the human world and another kind of realm. At these borders, you might accidentally glimpse someone—or something—that does not belong to your world.

“After the Ocean is a moving story, where magic seeps through the cracks of reality, told with incredible sensitivity.” —Paula Gallego, author of The Winter Princess

“An evocative and atmospheric story about the power of words and memory, one that draws you in irresistibly until the very end.” —Bruno Puelles, author of The City of a Thousand Eyes