The Secret of the Lonely Isles

Joanne Van Os (author)

Random House, Australia: February 2011; 187pp

ISBN: 9781741662528

Genres: adventure, realistic fiction

Issues: change, family, friendship, identity, relationships

When Jem's father is badly injured in a work accident, everything changes – family relationships, daily life, even where they live. Suddenly life seems dreadfully uncertain.

Ella, Jem's great-aunt, famous for her independent and wandering ways, arrives in the middle of this storm of uncertainty and offers to take Jem, his sister Maddy and their brother Tyler, as well as their friend, Zac, on a short sailing holiday. It seems she has something particular in mind and they soon finds themselves tracking the last known location of a Quaker ancestor. Old papers, a coded message in a letter, a hidden map – all these make for a wonderful treasure hunt.

Jem finds himself not only troubled by severe seasickness but also strange dreams of his generations-back namesake. He's also suffering from an uneasy feeling that the group is being followed. The close confines of a small boat, the challenges of sailing into the unknown and and an increasing interest in their family history have the siblings learning things about themselves and each other that wouldn't have been possible on land.

Within the narrative Van Os manages to capture both the sense of timelessness that happens on the ocean and the sense of imminent danger that comes from travelling so far away from land on an unpredictable medium. As with all the best adventures, this is as much a journey of the human spirit as it is a geographical one.