Every time a lad went fowling on the stacs, he came home less of a boy and more of a man. If he went home at all, that is. Every summer Quill and his friends are put ashore on a remote sea stac to hunt birds. But this summer, no one arrives to take them home. Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they've been abandoned--cold, starving and clinging to life, in the grip of a murderous ocean. How will they survive such a forsaken...

When a deadly plague reaches the small fish camp where he lives, an orphan named Leif is forced to take to the water in a cedar dugout canoe. He flees northward, following a wild, fjord-riven shore, thrown from one danger to the next, unsure of his destination. Yet the deeper into his journey he paddles, the closer Leif comes to his truest self as he connects to "the heartbeat of the ocean...the pulse of the sea.

Finding their way to a deserted island after their ship sinks, Luke, Ian, JJ, Charla, Will, and Lyssa struggle to survive and soon discover that they are not alone on the island.