Mr Carver's Whale

1850. A sea-chest full of books arrives for Antonio Mateus Carvalho Cabral, the younger son of a family of whalers on the small volcanic island of Pico ...

The Carvalho brothers - handsome Marcelinho and clever Antonio - are destined to spend their lives hunting whales. As the younger Carvalho discovers the fascinating world of the whale, a chasm opens between the two brothers, made all the more perilous by their shared passion for the alluring and wilful Margarida Machado.

From the Azores to Lisbon, from Newfoundland to Australia, Antonio travels in search of love, fortune and his very soul. It is in Eden, a small whaling port on the south coast of New South Wales, that he finally finds salvation in the shape of Alice Binney. An enduring bond forms between the two, culminating in a final, dazzling act of atonement.