Isle RoyaleYoung Adult Thriller72,000 wordsby John HamiltonWhat if your family was held hostage by killers? And what if your mom loved one of them? That’s the dilemma faced by Ian MacDougal, the 15-year-old son of a lighthouse keeper. The year is 1924. Ian and his family live at Wolf Point Lighthouse on remote Isle Royale, a wilderness archipelago in Lake Superior. Ian is a typical teenager: restless, longing for wide-open spaces. His father is Clarence, the head keeper, a meticulous man who takes blissful pride in tending to his lighthouse. Ian’s only friend on the island is Sally Young, daughter of the assistant lightkeeper.One storm-tossed night, bootleggers arrive to conduct some smuggling business. The leader of the gang is Sean LeBeck, a French-Canadian fresh from the horrors of WWI. A member of the Lost Generation, LeBeck lashes out in deranged self-loathing. But now he sees hope for his future. LeBeck is a former lover of Collene MacDougal—Ian’s mother. LeBeck is determined to rescue Collene from her dreary life and rekindle their old passion, whatever the cost.Ian and Sally escape from their captors, then attempt to sail to the nearest town for help. But the growing storm forces their tiny boat into a hidden cove, in which they find a ship manned entirely by gray-bearded sailors. These are the last remaining members of the Chippewa, a Coast Guard cutter that failed to rescue a passenger steamer during a horrific storm forty years earlier. The surviving crew banished themselves to the island to live out the rest of their days in shame. Their leader, old Captain Ben, sees one last chance for redemption. He exhorts his men to save the families at the lighthouse. But the fight has gone out of the ancient mariners. Ian and Sally realize they must take matters into their own hands. They leave the old men behind and set out overland, led through the storm by the piercing beam of the lighthouse.Meanwhile, LeBeck tries to convince Collene to come away with him. As proof of his love, he shows her a treasured locket, with her picture inside, which he carried with him during the war. Horrified at the turn of events, Collene rejects LeBeck. Undeterred, the gangster is determined to take her away with him that night, willingly or not.