Stiltsville, a community of houses in the middle of Biscayne Bay, mere miles from the dazzling and tumultuous city of Miami, is where Frances and Dennis DuVal put down roots. It’s the couple’s weekend oasis—but ultimately it’s life on land that proves unsteady.

When twenty-six-year-old Frances Ellerby falls in love with Dennis DuVal, a Miami native, on her first-ever trip to the lush and chaotic city, a new future opens up to her.

They marry and have a little girl, and yet Dennis and Frances continue to be faced with the challenges of intimacy and of the complicated place they call home. Far from being complacent about the life she’s built with Dennis, Frances unexpectedly finds herself drawn to other men and anxious about keeping her daughter safe from dangers outside her control.

Against a backdrop of hurricanes, violence, and tropical beauty, Frances and Dennis fight to save not just their marriage but themselves. And just when Frances thinks her life might have reached some semblance of solid ground, she must confront an obstacle so great that all she knows about navigating the uncharted waters of family life can’t keep them afloat.

Susanna Daniel interweaves the allure, violence, and humanity of Miami as it comes of age with a modern yet enduring story of a marriage’s beginning, maturity, and heartbreaking demise.