The Inventory of Vanishing Things

A town is vanishing into the sea, and fifteen-year-old Maren Vanry is determined to write down every small thing before it disappears.

In Saltburgh, houses are emptied street by street. The council records addresses, grants, demolition dates and relocation lists. Maren records what the official files leave out: a tin opener, a colander with one handle, a photograph left face-down, a brass key with no lock, a clock stopped at twenty past four.

For Maren, the ledger is more than a notebook. It is proof that the town existed. It is a way of keeping order while the sea takes the roads, the houses fall silent, and the people of the front are moved inland. It is also a way of avoiding the one disappearance she cannot bear to name: her mother, Cathy, who left and did not come home.

But when a box of salvaged books from Carrow House reveals a trace of Cathy’s handwriting, Maren’s careful record begins to turn into something more dangerous. A pressed leaf, a margin note, a hidden room and an unsent letter draw her towards the truth of a return that was never spoken of, and towards the painful knowledge that some things cannot be saved by writing them down.

As Saltburgh reaches its final days, Maren must decide what can be kept, what must be left behind, and whether love is sometimes found not in possession, but in the courage to let something vanish without turning away.

Lyrical, intimate and haunting, The Inventory of Vanishing Things is a deeply moving novel about memory, grief, family, place, and the fragile traces people leave behind.