Ocean

Published June 12th 2025 by Eye Books.

Ocean is a literary thriller set part in London and part on the high seas —
and wholly in the mind of its maverick heroine, pregnant schoolteacher Helen.

Available from all good bookshops, and from Amazon here;

Strange, wonderful, compelling.
It shows what a good storyteller can do when she really lets rip.
LOUIS de BERNIERES

If you like counting the days down to the publication of novels after which your life will never be the same again, set the clock for June 12 and Ocean by Polly Clark. Superb doesn’t begin to describe it. People are going to be talking of little else’
STRONG WORDS MAGAZINE

A ferociously intense portrait of a mind, marriage and family in extreme turbulence. Startling and dramatic, it made me very glad to be on terra firma.
AMANDA CRAIG

Such a powerful novel, with moments of real tenderness and outright terror, but all firmly in the realm of real feelings and emotions. Assured, human and compelling.
GERARD WOODWARD

Polly Clark is one of the most gifted writers working in Britain today. Ocean is both lyrical and page-turning, a thrilling novel that takes the reader on an epic journey, not only on the high seas but also in a marriage and within the mind of its fiercely intelligent and witty heroine.
JANE HARRIS

Visceral, lyrical…speaks to any woman who has ever loved and feared to lose.
JANE CAMPBELL

Such a thriller – I was gasping at the end of each chapter.
CLARE POLLARD

From the Cover

Caught in a terrorist explosion on the London Underground, inner-city schoolteacher Helen is pregnant and lost until a stranger leads her to safety then vanishes. Obsessed with finding him, she begins to lose her grip on reality – and her family.

As their marriage fractures, her husband Frank proposes a daring plan: sell up and sail the Atlantic with their son Nicholas and troubled foster daughter Sindi on the Innisfree, the very boat where the couple first fell in love.

What begins as a daring bid for salvation turns into an epic journey. The ocean proves as wild and unpredictable as the heartbreak Helen is trying to outrun. Will the voyage meant to save them destroy them instead? 

With a fiercely funny and maverick heroine at its helm, Ocean is a powerful exploration of the uncharted waters of the human heart. The award-winning author of Larchfield takes us on a gripping, beautifully written voyage into the depths of what it means to heal – and to live. 

You can more about the sailing trip that inspired the novel in a piece specially written for the The Observer.

Thank you for reading Monday Night Reads with Polly Clark. This post is public so feel free to share it.