Introduction

Part myth, part mystery, 'Island' (Previously called The Sea Change) is a tale of love and hate between a brother and a sister, the murder of their mother, and the magic of a remote Scottish island - based on Jane Rogers' acclaimed novel Island.

Nikki Black has never been happy. Abandoned at birth, she has spent most of her life in foster homes and ‘care’, with fairy-stories her only escape. Incapable of love or of being loved, paralyzed by attacks of Fear and desperate for revenge, she decides to find her birth mother, confront her ... then kill her.

Nikki travels up incognito to the remote Hebridean island community where her mother, Phyllis, now lives as a recluse. Upon arrival, she discovers she has a half-brother, Calum – the islander son her mother kept. As the weeks pass and she plots the perfect murder of her mother, in an unforeseen parallel, she awakens to the magic of the island, her beguiling brother and their shared passion for storytelling.

Soon, these conflicting emotions compel Nikki, now riddled with paranoia, to force her own hand with terrifying consequences. The story has all the universality and simplicity of a classical tragedy, with an uncompromising, contemporary twist. It raises profoundly important questions about identity, family and personal responsibility whilst allowing the redemptive power of love and imagination (accompanied by no small dose of black humour) to soar.