Over the last couple of years, I’ve been on a kick to read more New Zealand fiction, so I already had a copy of To the Sea by Nikki Crutchley when it was picked for book club.

Iluka has been the only home that Ana has ever known. The beautiful wild pine plantation overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where her grandfather builds furniture, her aunt runs an artists’ retreat and her uncle tends the land, is paradise, a private idyll safe from the outside world.

But the place holds a violent secret and when a stranger arrives, Ana will need to make a choice: protect everything – and everyone – she holds dear or tell the truth and destroy it all.

This is an interesting story. It’s of a harsh, twisted and violent man who keeps his family away from the town, where he can watch and rule over everything. He has built this cult-like environment, and brainwashed his children and grandchildren into thinking that the land they live on is more important than anything, and they can (and will) accept anything to live there. And that is just the surface – there is a lot more beneath.

The opening scene is one of the most disturbing opening scenes I have read in a long time. And it sets the tone for the entire novel. There were times I thought “Why?!” to actions in the book – this isn’t a bad thing, I was supposed to. And I found myself ruminating on events for several days after I finished it.