Excerpt from Eradication by Jonathan Miles, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

On the maps Adi had studied, Santa Flora resembled a comma on an otherwise blank page, but from the boat, as they made their westerly approach, he couldn't distinguish the comma's head from its tail; to his eye it was all just a uniformly scarpy chunk of land heaved from the sea that, lacking soft slopes or beaches or verdure or really any colors besides khaki and ash and a sparse dingy olive, gave the impression of not wanting to be bothered, of a primordial indifference. From every approach its back seemed turned.

Once we get around the south cape we'll be landing you at Eremos Cove, the captain told him. There's just two landing sites on the island. The other is Campo Langosta on the north end, but only at high tide, and Punta Araña can be dicey to get around. You might see fishing boats if you're up there. They're illegal. Shark finners from up north. Nasty bastards.

They followed the cliff-indented shoreline south until the comma's tail petered into a curl of volcanic stacks, dozens and dozens of clustered rock formations like half-submerged ruins of ancient statuary. Then the captain hooked the boat back northward, humming his dreary song while Adi and the mate stood flanking him. Beneath the midday sun the island appeared blanched and shadowless, like an unfinished painting.

You'll see where we dropped you your water last week, the captain told Adi. Half a pallet of it! Enough for you to make a bubble bath every night. He cocked a bushy eyebrow. Your foundation must have deep pockets.

The captain slid the boat between a pair of contorted rock spires and into the cove called Eremos. The water here was instantly different—turquoise and stilly—as was the coastline, with a narrow orange beach and clumps of what looked like palm trees bunched in the shallows and scattered amid another species of spindly misshapen trees. Adi saw where the sailors had left the half pallet of bottled water on their earlier trip, stacked right beside a primitive hut that he'd been told about, and this abrupt combination of shade, shelter, and gently lapping water relaxed something inside him. The island remained far from welcoming but at least here it wasn't scowling.

The captain burbled the boat as close to the beach as he could get while the mate dropped the bow anchor. Then the mate leapt into the waist-high water and, carrying the stern anchor, towed the boat in closer to moor it in the sand. He waded back and clapped his hands twice. The captain passed the mate one of Adi's duffels, which he hauled to the beach, and in this way, item by item, the sailors began moving Adi onto the island.

Excerpted from Eradication by Jonathan Miles. Copyright © 2026 by Jonathan Miles. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.