Circa 500 AD. Daring seafarers from the West Coast of Scotland have made a voyage of discovery deep into the Atlantic to a land they name Tir-ur. Bountiful, verdant, seemingly empty and ripe for the taking. That is until they encounter the earthbound, a race possessed of some characteristics the colonists find profoundly unsettling.
Off the coast of this new land, on the fortress island of Tearmann, a young woman, Firinn, awaits her arranged marriage to Amrhan, a charming and fascinating nobleman newly arrived from the distant homeland. The only child of the leader of the settlers and his earthbound wife, Firinn is unsure of her place in the world. When she discovers some disturbing truths about her husband-to-be, she is compelled to flee Tearmann, seeking refuge with her mother’s people.
Isles of the Earthbound is the story of a defiant young woman forced to make crucial choices, but also a powerful evocation of the natural world in all its aspects, both the joyful and the terrible.
