Find out more about this extraordinary book, and its four-year journey from submission to shelves, on the VP blog.

MacGregor is desperate to return home. Unfortunately, he’s marooned in the Gulf of Darién, following independent Scotland’s doomed colonisation attempt at the end of the 17th century. Worse still, he’s a character in a novel whose author is dying, and he’s running out of time.

As the author’s preoccupations, memories and spiralling thoughts start to pollute MacGregor’s world, he finds his narrative eroding and his escape routes blocked. Desperately clinging to hope, MacGregor is determined to keep his Creator writing long enough to deliver him home. But will he be able to drive the story to its end before his Creator reaches theirs?