Remarkably Bright Creatures gathers a small Pacific Northwest community around the Sowell Bay Aquarium, where grief, mystery, and second chances quietly converge. At its center are a meticulous widow, a drifting thirty-something, and an unusually perceptive octopus whose hidden knowledge ties the town’s past to its present. As their paths cross, they unravel the truth behind a long-ago disappearance and discover the families they’ve lost, chosen, and built.
Main Characters
Tova Sullivan
Tova Sullivan anchors the novel as its quiet, stubbornly dignified heart: a seventy-year-old night cleaner who maintains order at the aquarium to keep chaos—and grief—at bay after the deaths of her husband, Will, and her teenage son, Erik Sullivan. Her meticulous routines mask deep loneliness, yet an unexpected bond with Marcellus loosens her reserve and nudges her toward connection. Through her prickly-then-tender rapport with Cameron Cassmore, whom she first finds exasperating, she begins to recognize echoes of Erik and the possibility of family after loss; a gentle courtship with Ethan Mack likewise invites her to rejoin the living. Ultimately, Tova’s openness to friendship and truth transforms isolation into belonging, reshaping her future in Sowell Bay.
Marcellus
Marcellus—a giant Pacific octopus with a razor-dry wit—narrates with superior intelligence and a captive’s impatience, slipping from his tank at night to explore and observe the humans who so often fail to see one another clearly. He discerns what the townspeople cannot: the truth of Erik Sullivan’s fate and the threads binding Tova and Cameron Cassmore. His bond with Tova tempers his cynicism and turns him from watcher into orchestrator, arranging clues that nudge humans toward revelation. Even as he regards the aquarium director, Terry Bailey, as a well-meaning jailer, his final acts—retrieving evidence, restoring keys, and guiding Tova to family—win him the freedom he’s earned.
Cameron Cassmore
Cameron Cassmore arrives in Sowell Bay directionless and defensive, chasing a fantasy about a wealthy father after a childhood marked by abandonment by his mother, Daphne Ann Cassmore. Working at the aquarium forces him to show the competence he’s long downplayed, while friendships—with Tova’s clear-eyed steadiness and Ethan Mack’s tough-love generosity—push him toward responsibility. As he uncovers the truth of his parentage and his connection to Erik Sullivan, he stops running and begins to build: a job he can keep, a life he can own, and a relationship with Tova that gives him the rootedness he craved. His spark with Avery further challenges him to grow up and show up.
Supporting Characters
Ethan Mack
Ethan Mack is the gregarious Scottish owner of Shop-Way, a steady presence whose kindness makes him a social hub and a soft place to land. He gently courts Tova past her defenses and offers Cameron shelter, work connections, and pointed advice, knitting together people who might otherwise drift alone. A lifetime of solitude makes his quiet yearning for companionship poignant—and his role in this found family essential.
Erik Sullivan
Erik Sullivan, Tova’s son, haunts the present through memory and mystery; his disappearance at eighteen casts the long shadow that shapes his mother’s life. Beloved, bright, and more complicated than the town’s tidy narrative of despair, he hid his relationship with Daphne Ann Cassmore and never knew his son, Cameron. The eventual revelations reframe his story as one of young love and accident rather than intent, bringing overdue clarity and release.
Daphne Ann Cassmore
Daphne Ann Cassmore is Cameron’s elusive mother and Erik’s secret girlfriend, remembered as brilliant, guarded, and breakable. After losing Erik and facing pregnancy alone, she relinquishes Cameron to her sister and slips into instability, a choice Cameron experiences as abandonment. With time—and perspective from those who knew her—her decision reads as a tragic, love-tinged calculation by someone who believed she could not be the mother he needed.
Minor Characters
- The Knit-Wits: Tova’s lunch group—Mary Ann Minetti, Janice Kim, and Barb Vanderhoof—offers routine and community even as their talk of children and grandchildren underscores Tova’s apartness.
- Terry Bailey: The aquarium director, kindly vigilant about Tova and Marcellus, and comically outmatched by an escape-artist octopus.
- Aunt Jeanne: Cameron’s steadfast aunt who raises him with structure and care, urging him toward the responsibility he resists.
- Brad and Elizabeth Burnett: Cameron’s childhood friends whose stable marriage and impending parenthood highlight the aimlessness he’s trying to outgrow.
- Avery: The sharp, self-reliant paddle-shop owner and single mom whose no-nonsense warmth challenges Cameron to mature.
- Simon Brinks: A wealthy developer and Daphne’s old acquaintance; Cameron’s mistaken pursuit of him as a father draws him to Washington.
- Adam Wright: Erik’s former classmate whose sloppy confession at a luncheon gives Tova the first real lead toward the truth.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
Sowell Bay’s web centers on Tova and Marcellus: their cross-species friendship—built on observation, routine, and earned trust—sparks the novel’s revelations. Through him, Tova is nudged toward honesty with herself, and toward Cameron, whose resemblance to Erik is as much emotional as physical.
The family line that once seemed broken—Erik to Cameron to Tova—reconnects as secrets surface. Cameron’s search for identity collides with Tova’s search for closure, and their early friction softens into mutual rescue: she offers stability and belonging; he offers purpose and a future that includes her. Parallel to this, Erik and Daphne’s hidden romance retroactively reshapes the town’s assumptions, recasting a tragedy as an accident within a love story.
On the community side, Ethan acts as the social hinge, bridging old-timers and newcomers, aquarium and town. His quiet affection for Tova grows into a late-in-life companionship, while his mentorship helps Cameron translate potential into practice. Around them, Avery’s clear-eyed affection pushes Cameron to be accountable, and even bit players—shopkeepers, classmates, knitters—create the fabric in which this found family takes hold.