Where the World Ends

Geraldine McCaughrean It is the summer of 1727 and on the isolated Scottish island of Hirta, St Kilda, it is fowling season. A group of men and boys are sent ashore to a remote sea stack to collect birds for what is meant to be a three week harvest. However, after a month on the perilous rock there is still no sign of the ship that is meant to return and collect them. As the days roll on, they are forced to come to terms with the fact that they are stranded, imprisoned on every side by the ocean, and by the fear of the unknown.

This new novel from one of today’s most successful and highly regarded children’s authors, Geraldine McCaughrean, is based on the true story of a group of fowlers who, in 1727, were marooned on Stac an Armin in the St Kilda archipelago.

On the process of writing the book and trying to imagine what was going through the minds of the men and boys stranded on the sea stack, McCaughrean says: “The novel is more guesswork than history, but the fact those men, those boys genuinely existed, certainly upped the ante.”

When she first came across the tale, McCaughrean said she was “tantalised with its lack of detail.”

The same cannot be said for Where the World Ends. The book, which is aimed at teenage readers, offers a vivid depiction of life in one of the most remote regions of Scotland and McCaughrean’s masterful characterisation breathes life into the men and young boys trapped on the sea stack.

We feel their fear, their confusion, their will to survive and marvel at their courage in the face of such terrible odds.