Sweeping historical story of Dr Nicholas Power, Irish doctor, shipwrecked on the Scillies and makes a life there until his past catches up with him. Gives a very detailed account of the hard life on the islands in the early 19th century and is clearly well researched. ( )

I read this novel as it was set in the Scilly Isles, which I visited this summer; indeed, most of the action on the Scillies is set on Tresco, probably my favourite of the inhabited isles. The time is the late 1820s and into the 1830s, when Scilly was transformed by the arrival as proprietor of Augustus Smith, here portrayed as a ruthless tyrant, though now generally highly regarded as having improved the previously dire economic life of the islanders. The hero Nicholas Power is an Irish doctor, who later fights Smith's new policies, but has his own secretive past, escaping from which cast him onto Tresco's bleak northern shores in a shipwreck in the first place. The novel gave quite a good feel for the uniqueness of Scillonian life, the sense of isolation and independence, even on the part of the Trescoites (if there is such a word) towards the island authorities on St Mary's. The middle third of the novel is set in the American goldrush and was my least favourite part, but was still quite readable. Overall 4/5 ( )