I'm gonna be upfront and say this book was not at all what I was expecting by the cover blurb. I don't think the cover art would have persuaded me to pick it up and pay for it, so take from that what you will. It's not, however, particularly eye-catching, and I wound up reading it because I got a free copy. On the one hand, it depicts a scene from the book, and the various elements combined convey the mood pretty accurately. Nevertheless, Lawrence has created a totally credible 18th-century setting and a very exciting story.I'm torn on this cover. The adult characters form the traditional Gothic cast of enigmatic uncles and sinister priests.

Mary’s sudden willingness to martyr herself to stop the wrecking also seems insufficiently motivated, as she initially appears to take her community’s way of life for granted. His yen for the seafaring life is unshaken by ships he has seen in distress in the Cornish harbour, but we are not shown why.

At the conclusion, we know little more about John than we did at the beginning. The Wreckers is driven by plot and atmosphere: characterization is given secondary importance. His diction, however, is richly varied and fresh, yet accessible to young adult readers. Lawrence betrays a relentless fascination with the ghoulish: the bleak timbre of the novel is unleavened by humour or joy. From the first page, he establishes a dark mysterious tone to prepare the reader for the macabre events that unfold. Lawrence’s style is always lively and evocative, racing the reader along without ever losing the tang of the sea. John teams up with Mary, a Cornish girl disgusted by her community’s work, to put an end to the wrecking and save the only other survivor from John’s ship: his father. Not content to wait for ships to founder on their treacherous rocks, some of the townsfolk summon ships to their death with beacons, and then murder the survivors. He discovers that he’s landed in a remote Cornwall community that lives off the spoils of shipwrecks. John, the 14-year-old narrator, survives the waves only to face another fight for his life. journalist and travel writer Iain Lawrence, The Wreckers is immediately gripping, from its opening scene of a shipwreck.

The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence