Hard landscapes and hard work provide the background for this tapestry of life and death. Fatalism, joy and blind emotion play havoc with the harsh realities expected on these islands, sewn like diamonds across the waters north-east of mainland Scotland. Romance is chaperoned by economic necessity, constrained by the difficulties of travel, and released by the serendipitous accidents of mortality. Unremitting hope brightens the simple lives of three generations of island folk. The persistent need to locate her family with a sense of time and place in a wider context led Fiona Pearson on a personal Odyssey. One result was a journal and sketchbook of the Northern Isles. An accomplished artist gradually became a novice script-writer, and subsequently a novelist. Fiona lives with her family in Yorkshire, England.