Ten-year-old Isla has moved from Edinburgh to the Orkney Islands with her parents, to start a new life after the death of Isla's beloved young brother. Isla's mother's family is from Orkney and her father's is from Africa, and she finds island life is very different to her former city home.
Her discovery of the old Orcadian legend about the selkies, half human, half seal people, becomes the key to adjustment and acceptance. Many strands are woven into this deceptively simple story - loss and discovery, legend and reality, the pleasures and problems of settling into a new place, the need to make new friends, the coming to terms with sadness.
