"Conch Pearl grabbed me like a riptide. The plight of young Dede is so immersive and thrilling that I wanted to devour the book in a single sitting, yet the prose is so beautiful and visceral that I wanted to luxuriate over every delicious sentence. The solution, of course, was to race to the ending to find out what happened, then read this marvelous gem again."

-Abby Gerri is the author of The Wildlands, The Lightkeepers, The Last Animal, and a forthcoming short story collection, The Body Farm.

"Three lives collide with tragic results in this propulsive and transporting novel. At the center of Conch Pearl is Dede, a twelve-year-old British girl, dragged to Grand Bahama Island by her mother who finds work and love in a casino. Dede, unsupervised, lonely, yearning for home, seeks companionship from two neighbors, Ethel, an aloof Bahamian woman, and the too-friendly handyman Johnny McGuinn. Justicz's profound insights into her characters and her unfolding of the risks they must face are stunning. Conch Pearl is a grip-you-by-the-throat page turner about love and survival, that is profound and deeply satisfying. This is a novel you won't forget."

-Lynn Sloan is the author of two novels, Midstream and Principles of Navigation, and the story collection This Far Isn't Far Enough.