Where the World Ends

With his Scottish accent, narrator Angus King adds atmosphere to this beautifully written historical novel. In the early 1700s, a group of boys and three adult chaperones are dropped off on Warrior Stac, a remote sea rock, for a few weeks of fowling--hunting puffins, storm petrels, and gannets. When the boat doesn't return to pick them up, the group must survive the increasingly harsh conditions. Listeners experience all of this through Quilliam, a kind, curious boy who pines for Murdina, a young woman back on St. Kilda, and who strikes up a sort of friendship with a lone garefowl--a great auk. There's a lightness to King's tone that reflects the boys' youth and helps keep the story from feeling too grim, in spite of the circumstances. It's gripping listening. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine