Kaliko on the Shoals

By Emma Renault

When Kaliko was eighteen years old, she opened up about her sexual abuse at her father's hand, days before leaving for a new life in Los Angeles with her girlfriend, Luna.  A few months later, she dropped out of college and moved back to the small town where she and Luna grew up, unable to deal with the pressures of adult life.

Two years later, Kaliko is still trapped in her father's long shadow.  She spends most of her time alone on a hidden island, playing pretend and trying her hardest to feel something, anything - only seeing Luna when she comes home from college on the weekends.  When a mysterious trans woman pretending to be a selkie princess offers her a chance at friendship, Kaliko starts down the jagged, looping path of self-discovery and healing.

Told through intimate and loving prose, Kaliko on the Shoals is an unflinchingly real story of the highs and lows of life - love, pain, identity, recovery, hope, destiny, and trauma..