The Book of Fading Names

Genealogist Clodagh Power returns to coastal Newfoundland hunting the family erased from her childhood. In a cold stone church, she finds a registry whose ink fades whenever a parishioner dies.

Her grandmother’s name remains dark thirty years after her recorded death. The priest offers one explanation: somewhere, the woman is still alive.

Clodagh follows the name through abandoned settlements, inherited anger, and stories reshaped by whoever survived. Every clue makes death less certain and remembrance more dangerous. Finding her grandmother may mean learning whether a person can disappear while her name refuses.

The dead vanish slowly when someone keeps speaking their names.