Skye thinks her life sucks. She has no father, her mother is busy all the time, and her best friend has a new boyfriend. Skye longs to be part of a real family. So when she's invited to travel to the West Coast of New Zealand to meet her ailing great-grandfather, she's keen. She's also determined to discover why her mother is estranged from the rest of the family.

But the truth remains elusive and Skye becomes embroiled in several puzzling situations, all played out against a wild but threatened landscape. Why is her mother so difficult? What dangerous secret is Skye's great-grandfather trying to confess? Why is Skye drawn to her newly-found teenage cousin, Josh? What can she do to stop Josh's environmental protest group being betrayed by a double agent?

Skye is pulled in different directions but the worst problem is her own fear. In the end, all she can do is ... run. This is a tense, nail-biting story of a girl trying to find her family - and herself.

My husband's grandfather was a coalminer. He began working in a mine in Scotland when he was 10, and spent the next 30 years there. Then he emigrated to New Zealand and worked in the Millerton mines (in Buller, on the West Coast) for another 32 years.

This family history, together with a visit to the ghost towns of Millerton and Denniston, gave me the idea of writing a YA story which looks at both past and present-day issues relating to coalmining. My heroine wrestles with family secrets and lies in a setting where nature itself is under threat.

Research Denniston and Millerton and describe what the communities were like when coalmining was in its heyday.

Research the history of the protests against more mining on the Denniston Plateau (in Buller).