The Voyage Home — Jane Rogers

A missionary's daughter confronts her father's secrets -- and her own life -- in this “deeply poetic” novel by the award-winning author of Mr. Wroe's Virgins (The Guardian).
 
When her missionary father suddenly dies in Nigeria, thirty-seven-year old school teacher Anne Harrington makes the journey from London to retrieve his body. She decides to take the return voyage by container ship, giving herself time to come to terms with his death.
 
She had no way of knowing what would await her onboard: that she would get involved with two stowaways (clandestinely), and the ship's mate (sexually), and the journey would end in murder. Nor, for that matter, that reading her father's diaries would reveal an illegitimate sibling, whose fate her father was seeking when he died and whom Anne must now attempt to find in order to make peace with herself.
 
In The Voyage Home, Jane Rogers explores the themes of immigration and colonialism in “a lusciously written tale, rich in emotional nuance” (Publishers Weekly).