The year is 1591 and nineteen-year old Edward Harry sails to Ireland as secretary to the famous poet Edmund Spenser. Confident of his own talents, Edward expects to make his fortune as the English impose their rule on the embittered Irish. His life is blown off-course when an excursion in a small boat off the coast of Kinsale in County Cork leads to a landing on the fabled island of Hy Brazil, the Eleven realm. All is not well in Hy Brazil. The island is riven by a savage civil war and Edward Harry and Calvagh, his Irish companion, are drawn into the very heart of the conflict. This is a beautifully-crafted tale of strange magics and one young man's struggle to cope with an extraordinary destiny.