Interest age 13+, Reading age 3rd grade. Living in a creaking castle on a remote, windswept island off Scotland, Anna has never known anyone other than her father, his assistant and their two servants. She is kept away from books, pictures and other children by her father, a mathematical genius, who is slowly losing his mind. Then one wild stormy day a boy washes up on the shore, a boy who will change her whole world and make her question everything she has ever believed in. With her eyes opened to life outside of the island Anna soon realises that someone close to her is determined to destroy what is left of her father’s fragile sanity. Determined to protect him Anna faces her fears and, with the help of her new-found friend, breaks free from her isolation.

This atmospheric short story inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest will hook readers from the first rain-drenched paragraph. The wild storms and the isolation of the island are images of Anna’s passions and her pains, much as The Tempest uses an island as a literal image of banishment, and a magical storm as the manifestation of a magician’s anger and desire for revenge.

This terrifically taut and short novel is targeted for reluctant/struggling readers or kids with dyslexia. The interest level is aged 13 and up, while it is at a 3rd grade reading level.