The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Hughes, Siân. Pearl. The Indigo Press, 2023.

The novel begins with Marianne, a middle-aged woman, returning to her childhood village in Wales for a summer festival called the Wakes. It is a mix of memorial and celebration and Marianne remembers her late mother. Her father and younger brother never return for the festival, but Marianne always brings her teenage daughter, Susannah. She imagines her mother coming back to find her at the festival and wonders how she would get her attention.

Marianne's mother always believed in fairies and other mystical creatures which Marianne enjoyed as a little girl. She wishes she had more realistic memories with her mother, but she disappeared when Marianne was only eight years old, so they did not have enough time to form those memories. After her mother disappeared, the village people searched frantically but never found her. They began to speculate that she had run off with another man and Marianne felt guilty for not being a good enough daughter to hold her mother's attention.

As she walks back through her memories, Marianne remembers when she, her father, and brother moved into a smaller house closer to the city when they realized her mother was not going to return. Marianne met a slightly older girl name Emily and began a relationship with her. Emily was not a great partner to Marianne and demonstrated outsized interest in Marianne's tragic past and lack of close relationships. She dated other people while they were together and did not care much for her feelings. On a night Emily insists on visiting Marianne's old house in the village, the girls have a fight and Emily reveals she knows Marianne's mother had another son who tragically passed away before Marianne was born. Marianne is shocked by the revelation, but her father confirms they have another child named Jonathan. She asks her father if they can place a small gravestone for him so they have a physical place to remember him during the Wakes.

Marianne has a child with a man she is not in a relationship with, fulfilling her deepest desire to have a baby. She loved Susannah but often struggled with feeling like she was an inadequate mother and resembled her own mother in her mental health struggles. She never encouraged her daughter to reach out to her father and later regrets this lack of stability.

As Marianne's story comes to a close, she feels more stable in her relationship with her daughter and the realization that her mother's disappearance was a mistake. She had forgotten Jonathan's birthday and in her rush to cross the river to the chapel where he was buried, she was swept away in the swell. Marianne forgives her mother and has a dream of her coming to her house and tucking her in to bed. Everything about the encounter feels viscerally real and Marianne is finally able to unburden herself and forgive her mother.