The Cicada House

By: Ella Ward

Length: 10 hrs

Publisher's summary

A warm, funny and surprising love story about one woman's journey to find out who she really is—as if Richard Curtis watched Seachange, shared a cold beer with Dolly Alderton, and together they wrote The Time Traveler's Wife.

Caitlin unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money on her 40th birthday. She's about to tell her husband, Paul, about her plan for them to Eat Pray Love around the world, only to have her world shatter when he tells her he is in love with someone else. After a drunken night trying to console herself, Caitlin books tickets to Australia, first class, as well as a cottage in a small beachside town—anything to get as far away as possible. But when she gets there, it's hot, there are wasps, the house is falling down, and there's an odd handyman around, who comes and goes in rather mysterious ways. Little does Caitlin know that losing it all can mean gaining more than you'd ever imagine.

This is a story that begins in a way you expect, and ends very far from there. It is a story of creaking English hallways and vast Australian skies. Of hands that feel like warm sandpaper. Screen doors that bang in hot thunderstorms. Cicadas that sing so loudly they drown out the grief. Of white wine and an old piano and children who want their parents back from the dead. It is a magical tale of time travel and mystery, and a special house—a story of falling in love: with a new country and a new person, and most importantly, falling in love with oneself, for the very first time.

©2025 Ella Ward (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers