Shifting Sands

Neolithic Orkney. Blue Feather lives in a stone-built coastal settlement inspired by Skara Brae and has been promised to Long Axe, the feared leader whose authority is protected by custom and sacred claims. As wind and shifting sand close around the community, she begins to question both the marriage arranged for her and the power that makes resistance appear impossible.

The novel reconstructs household work, fishing, ritual and communal dependence within a small prehistoric society. Blue Feather’s private refusal becomes dangerous because it challenges the political and religious structure of the whole settlement. Her struggle is not presented as modern individualism transplanted into the past, but as courage formed within a world where survival depends on the same people whose customs constrain her.