Habits of the Sea

• Author: Shea Ernshaw
• Genre: Magical Realism
• Publication Date: July 7, 2026
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

ONE ISLAND. 

ONE MAN LOST AT SEA.

AND ONE WOMAN WHO SACRIFICES EVERYTHING TO FIND HER WAY BACK.

The night Clay Lockhart’s wife dies, a violent storm tears their home—and the eight hectares of land beneath it—away from the Scottish coast, sending it adrift into the Atlantic. Thirty years later, twelve-year-old Ellie Mills discovers the fabled floating island off the coast of Nova Scotia—and finds Clay still living in the weatherworn farmhouse perched on its highest hill.

When the island vanishes overnight, Ellie is left questioning whether it ever existed at all. But decades later, now in her thirties, the island resurfaces—and Ellie returns, determined to uncover the truth. What she finds is even stranger: Clay hasn’t aged a single day.

Faced with the impossible, Ellie learns that some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved—and that a life shaped by wonder may hold more promise than one bound by certainty.

Spanning centuries and coastlines, Habits of the Sea is a haunting, romantic journey through time, memory, and the invisible tides that pull us home.

Shea Ernshaw has become an auto-buy author for me. I’ve loved her YA and adult books, and was expecting this to be much like her other books. All that to say that I went into this read understanding how Ernshaw crafts her stories. They tend to be slower-paced and more introspective, like a meandering mosey through the lives of the characters.

All of Ernshaw’s books are set in a deeply atmospheric location, whether it is a story set along the coast or completely inland, and this one is no different. The story takes place initially in the coastline of Nova Scotia, and then transfers to a fantastical floating island that has earned a reputation as an urban legend. 

When Clay Lockhart’s floating island approaches the coastline, a young Ellie manages to get there and encounters Clay, who isn’t exactly welcoming towards this young girl. We don’t get to know much about Clay aside from the initial scene when his land breaks off the coast of Scotland and goes floating around the Atlantic. But when Ellie shares what happened on the island, she isn’t believed and it has a heavy impact on her ability to trust herself and her own mind, even her own memories. Yet she knows what she experienced as a child, so when the island appears again more than 20 years later, she again makes her way onto Clay’s island. 

The story is a slow-burn, and there isn’t a lot of action for the vast majority of the story. It is more of an amble along the lives of the characters, and how they manage to live on an island that floats around the Atlantic. There’s no way to anchor the island and no way to steer, so they are sent by the whims of the ocean’s currents. The middle part of the story did feel much slower, when it is just Clay and Ellie alone on the island. Even so, I went into this prepared for a slower pace since that’s how all of her books have been. Since there isn’t much that happens on an isolated island with a population of two, the central portion of the novel focuses more on how Clay and Ellie interact, and it also involves a lot of Ellie’s inner thoughts, which do become a bit repetitive in the middle part of the book. But as someone who is torn between her beloved Nana and the feelings she develops for Clay, she does have a lot of inner turmoil that she tries to figure out, in addition to the daily work they must do to survive—caring for the livestock and gardens, along with repairs and fishing—it is understandable that she struggles with her new reality. 

Later in the book, the genre swiftly changes from magical realism/fantasy to more of a dystopian story. Obviously climate change plays a role in this, especially since they live on an island that prevents them from aging, and time seems to run differently on the island than anywhere else. Clay is the same age as the day his land broke off the coast of Scotland and initially, Ellie spends a short time on the island but it is a longer period of time that she was gone from the rest of the world. I did find it a little strange that Clay initially met Ellie as a little girl, and while Ellie spends decades back in Nova Scotia, he finds her attractive as a woman when they meet again, since it wasn’t decades for him that had passed. But there isn’t any insta-love because the author takes the time to let the characters get to know each other even as they are confined to the same plot of land. 

Overall, this was a great story. I love Ernshaw’s work, and she uses her skills to create an atmospheric island setting, complex characters who take the time to get to know each other and have realistic interactions, and a story that completely pulled me in and didn’t let go, even when things were moving especially slow. I loved Ellie’s quiet, introspective ways, and how she and Clay seem to be a really good fit for each other before they ever even touch. The romance does take time to build, which makes sense of Clay first knowing Ellie as a pre-teen and suddenly now as an adult woman in her 30s, and I loved watching these two first acknowledge their feelings for each other and then forming a real romantic relationship. While the story involves quite a few fantastic elements, I liked that a lot, and I think that the climate change/dystopian turn in the second half was a surprise, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that climate change would be a natural part of the story. We are already seeing the effects of climate change, and logically, a floating island would also be affected, especially as water levels rise and extreme weather events occur on a more regular basis. It did seem a little jarring at first but I was able to see why she incorporated this element into the story. Despite the flaws, which were minor, I was able to fully immerse myself in the story and found myself wondering what would happen to them next. And the ending was a surprise but it was perfect for the story.

Bottom line: This is an outstanding book from Shea Ernshaw, with an atmospheric setting and well-rounded, realistic, and flawed characters, that really did have me thinking about memory, time, and those situations in life that just feel fated. Just be aware that it is a slower paced and a slow-burn novel rather than a fast-paced read full of action.

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