Whalespeak: A Novel

Told from above and below the ocean's surface...

When forty-one humpback whales mysteriously strand themselves on the New Jersey coast, Gaelic singer and long-distance swimmer Sloane Murphy recognizes one of them immediately. The scar above his eye belongs to a whale she has known since surviving a devastating boating accident years before. As he struggles to stay alive, Sloane realizes he is trying to communicate a desperate warning—and she is the only person who can understand.

Working alongside marine mammal language specialist Eiden, Sloane is drawn into an extraordinary connection that challenges her lifelong fear of intimacy. But when Eiden suddenly disappears, her search for him uncovers a conspiracy that reaches far beyond the stranded whales. The secrets hidden beneath the waves could silence the whales' extraordinary knowledge and put the future of the planet itself at risk.

Beneath the ocean's surface, the humpback leader Shwona has been given one command: stay with the swimmer. She is more important than anyone yet understands.

A sweeping novel of love, loss, mystery, and the profound intelligence of the natural world, Whalespeak will captivate readers who love the emotionally rich, nature-centered fiction of Charlotte McConaghy.

About the Author

Liz Collins has been a mixed-media artist for more than forty years. She has taught art retreats around the world, including in Italy, France, Greece and Mexico. Writing has been her “hidden” love throughout her art career. Her short stories and poems have been published in journals such as Earth Daughters, Raven’s Perch, and Harbinger and received recognition from Solas Traveler’s Tales. Her collaborative book of poetry was published by Inner Thicket Press. Liz’s fascination with the extraordinary possibility of whale intelligence inspired her to write her debut novel, Whalespeak. She lives in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains in Northern California.

Praise for Whalespeak

“Whalespeak is a tantalizing eco-mystery wrapped in a love story—and one you won’t expect. It’s the story of a woman who seeks to communicate with the whales she loves, to help save them from a modern technology that threatens their lives.”
—Leigh Calvez, author of The Breath of a Whale and The Hidden Lives of Owls

“In Whalespeak, author Liz Collins pulls us under the rising tide of tension between technology and the natural world, gasping as hope threatens to vanish for the future of life both underwater and on shore.”
—Cindy Ellen Hill, author Elegy for the Trees, Love in a Time of Climate Change, and Leeds Point