Meridian 144

While scuba diving on a sunken warship, Kit and her companion are trapped underwater after a nuclear bomb strikes the harbor of their Pacific island home

She is 50 feet underwater, scuba diving on an old sunken warship in the harbor of a Pacific island, which is about as far away as she can get from her unhappy divorce, a string of unfulfilling affairs and her persistent lack of conviction about her life. Kit Manning wonders if Tano Island will be for her a point of departure to somewhere better. Then everything turns a bright yellow, "the water like wrinkled amber foil." Her new beau, an air force captain from the island's base, swims down to her, frantic. "Fireball" he writes on a slate. The shock wave that follows is terrifying; it tips the sunken vessel over. When Kit surfaces alone, she returns to a devastated harbor and perhaps a decimated world. When she emerges from the sea, it is as if for the first time. Everything has changed. No one else can define her life anymore ... or save it.

Meg Files' MERIDIAN 144 combines the compelling drive of Nevil Shute's ON THE BEACH with the inner evolution of Margaret Atwood's SURFACING.