Rosa has grown up an orphan In a wild, watery island fastness on the remote east coast of Yorkshire. Taken in as a small child by the motherly Mrs. Drew, she realizes as she grows up that this large and seemingly close farming family contains many troubled souls. Mr. Drew's religious fervour holds a dark secret; Jim, the eldest son, is terrified of something from his past; Delia longs to escape from the island; and tall, handsome, confident Matthew only wants one thing- Rosa herself.

But Rosa's background is one of mystery. Her mother, before she drowned in the sea near their home, had always promised that one day Rosa's father would return to her - a handsome Spaniard, with jewels and silks in treasure chests, sailing in on a ship with golden sails. Mr. Drew knows the secret of Rosa's past - and so do the two mysterious Irishmen, who come back to the island after many years to threaten everything Rosa holds most dear.

Prologue from ROSA'S ISLAND:
The river's waters eddied and broke over the bank of sunken sand, covering it with a watery blanket and then retreating. Again it came and drew away. Over the years the sand-bank grew wider and higher and the constant rhythmic waves of the estuary surged and flowed and caressed its edges, flooding the greening centre only at high spring tides.
Sonke Sande, a bare and empty lonely isle risen from the deep Humber bed. A still land and silent save for the haunting cry of the wild geese who stretched their wings in flight above it.
'Tharlesmere, Frismerk, Ravenser Odd's come again.' The villagers who watched its mystical rising from the marshy mainland shore spoke in whispers of the lost lands of long ago, lands swept away by the swollen waters and their inhabitants drowned. Others shook their heads in disagreement and said that the sea had brought it, washing down from the eroding cliffs of Holderness and into the estuary.
However it had come, this lonely, mist-shrouded land, there was one opinion on which they were in accord. It was river land and the river one day would claim it back.