It is 1974 & the summer of love is drawing to a close. Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the secondary school
... Every summer the four Ryan children play in the ruins of Fernscourt, the once-grand house on the bank of the river.
...
Set in a dystopian vision of the future, Firebird & her brother Ford live in a swamp on the edge of the city with their father & grandmother. They make a living by trapping eels
- or so they believe until they discover that the eel smokery has been closed for a year, & that the family's money comes from the bags that Firebird makes from dried eel skins. Their shock at discovering that their whole lives have been based on lies
- of which the most shocking is that their mother is still alive
- coincides with a cataclysmic storm which destroys the swamp & kills their father. Slowly the family has to reassess their whole way of life &, indeed, who they actually are.