Scabbit Isle

Tom Pow

Jun 2011 · Random House

About this ebook

The first time Sam sees the mysterious figure of Janet she vanishes into the deserted fields beyond the town where nothing has ever been built. Sam learns that centuries before this was the place to which plague victims were banished - Scabbit Isle - a place of terror. With the help of Mr Carruthers, the old curator of the local museum, Sam gradually uncovers the horror of Janet's story - consigned to Scabbit Isle by her cruel father and abandoned by her weak lover, Janet suffers without hope. She will continue to do so, if she can't find someone who, for love, will risk all to enter the plague colony to release her. Janet seems to be beckoning Sam to help her and a tragedy within Sam's own family brings Sam even closer to Janet's fate. Janet is the same age that Sam's twin sister Alice would have been had she not been killed in an accident. It is a loss from which Sam's father, in particular,has never recovered. Can Sam summon up the courage to face the terrors of Scabbit Isle and, like Orpheus, venture into the underworld to bring Janet peace?

About the author

Tom Pow was born in Edinburgh. He studied at the University of St Andrews before teaching English in schools in Edinburgh, London, Madrid and Dumfries where he now lives with his wife and two children. He has taken up Writer's Bursaries to travel to South America and Africa and spent 1992-3 as Scottish/Canadian Writing Fellow based at the University of Alberta. In 1999 he went part time to concentrate on his writing. Tom was Scotland's first Virtual Writer in Residence and first ever Writer in Residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2001. Tom has written poetry, a travel book, radio plays a substantial amount of Journalism. He has written two picture books and his first novel for younger readers, Scabbit Isle, was published in Corgi in August 03.
Tom Pow was born in Edinburgh. He studied at the University of St Andrews before teaching English in schools in Edinburgh, London, Madrid and Dumfries where he now lives with his wife and two children. He has taken up Writer's Bursaries to travel to South America and Africa and spent 1992-3 as Scottish/Canadian Writing Fellow based at the University of Alberta. In 1999 he went part time to concentrate on his writing. Tom was Scotland's first Virtual Writer in Residence and first ever Writer in Residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2001. Tom has written poetry, a travel book, radio plays a substantial amount of Journalism. He has written two picture books and his first novel for younger readers, Scabbit Isle, was published in Corgi in August 03.