Kindle Countdown Deal:
08/22/2014 - 08/29/2014
Flither Lass is set in 1915, and looks at the First World War from a unique perspective.
It takes place in a remote coastal fishing village that is ravaged by poverty, harsh living conditions, the torments of nature. And the war, being fought hundreds of miles away in Belgium and France, is being fueled, almost literally, by Britain's young men, including those from Wyke Bay. So even the remoteness cannot cushion the lives of the inhabitants.
The village would seem to be remote, but the North Sea is just a few yards away, a major fishing lane being used to ship essential food and supplies to Britain. The ships are under constant threat from German mines and U-boats, bringing the war uncomfortably close.
Amy Trott has just gone 16, and is barely aware that there's a war on. She collects limpets—or "flithers"—that are used to bait her father's fishing lines. Without women like her there would be no bait, so no catches. Yet these flither girls were treated as the lowest of the low. As if things aren't already bad enough for Amy, she is further estranged from the local community which believes, in its ignorance, that she is backward, slow-witted, when she's just a wild, unruly girl, passionately protective of the small bay that she believes is hers.
When Amy's father is caught in a sudden storm, and doesn't return, she is convinced that he will. And searching the shoreline she finds a man. He is barely alive, and she decides to keep him, not realizing that he is German.