It’s 1970 and 13-year-old Mona McKenna is living at Cape Willoughby, an isolated lighthouse on Kangaroo Island, with her grandparents, eight-year-old brother Albert and their dog Biscuit. It’s where Mona and Albert’s mum Maisie grew up and where she met their dad, Lear. 

Until five years ago, Mona and Albert hadn’t met their grandparents. And they’d only known Kangaroo Island through their parents’ songs and stories, especially the ones about the endangered sea lions. It’s a beautiful, wild island and Mona and Albert help their grandparents keep the brilliant heart of the lighthouse beating. But someone is missing. Two someones.

One will never return. They’ve had to accept that since the awful night that took their mother from them. But the other? He’s been missing for the same period of time, and the siblings can’t understand why. 

Mona is also struggling with a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, and has begun to act in ways that make her hate herself. As a way of coping, she collects flotsam and jetsam she finds on the beaches and in the sea, feeling security from holding onto them. She’s even begun to take things that don’t belong to her. And when a sea lion pup arrives without his mum, Mona takes comfort in his company, knowing she can’t keep him forever, but desperately wanting to hold on. 

As Mona and Albert care for the pup, they uncover a family secret that answers the question forever in their hearts: the whereabouts of their missing dad and why he had to leave them. And when the lighthouse comes under threat, they must band together to protect the only place he can still be with them.

Can they keep their family secret, protect the sea lions and save their lighthouse home?

Author: Helen Edwards

Cover Designer: Tamlyn Teow

Format: Paperback