[Sea-Wreck Stranger 01] • The Sea-Wreck Stranger

Ness lives on Dunnett Island, where people are in constant fear of all things that come from the sea, having lost many of their folk to the ocean's toxins. They have been hardened by fear, loss and superstition and live a restricted, hard-working life. Ness is imaginative and independent and questions and seeks meaning in a world that her elders would drain of all variety and joy.

When Ness, Ty and Sophie defy orders and explore in a concealed cove, they discover a body washed ashore; a man who has been shipwrecked.

Ness realises that his very existence heralds the possibility that there are other lands, other survivors, and also the possibility that the world's seas are healing. She undertakes a foolhardy, courageous gamble when she decides to keep the stranger concealed and alive. All too soon she risks everything, including her own life, to help him escape when her close-minded, ‘witchhunting' community discovers her secret.