Sea of Whispers

Hetty is an outsider, always at odds with the close-knit community on the island of Mora, where the population is less than 100. Her parents drowned when she was a baby and the 15-year-old has grown up with a strong sense of independence, as well as a sensitivity to what she perceives as messages sent from the sea. She collects washed up sea glass in which images of faces appear to her – but what could they be trying to say? Such eccentric behaviour and her protectiveness over the strange old woman who is washed up on the shore after a storm make the island folk suspicious of Hetty. As the community rounds on her, she takes matters into her own hands to save the woman’s life and discover something of her own fate.

This highly atmospheric novel draws the reader into a time before instant communication and life on a tiny island battered by storms, where the sea rules everyday life. Visually, the novel emits darkness, as if you were reading it by candlelight beneath a threatening sky. There is quite a cast of characters, and it be difficult to keep track of them, but island life is evocatively imagined. Hetty’s own history – orphaned, chastised, misunderstood – should demand our sympathy, but her character is steelier than this. When Hetty sets off on her own path, she opens up to the reader as to herself.