Winter 1836, and the "Belle of Wilmington" discharges its doomed crew on Wherrytown. Little daunted, the Captain and his sailors flirt, drink and brawl their way through the village, marooned along with Aymer Smith, a virgin and a blunderer in search of a wife. As vivid and alive as characters by Dickens, these men play out their dreams against a haunting, monumental landscape, bringing the New World back to the Old, with fresh discoveries, fresh hazards, fresh hopes.'The passions and mores of the 1830s are flawlessly delineated in this masterly novel, imbued with the tang and power of the sea' "Independent".