Candia McWilliam had just joined the judging panel of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2006 when she started to lose her sight. In 'What To Look For In Winter', we see her rifling through her many selves for that elusive thing, a sense of self, as all the time she searches the wilder shores of medicine for a cure for her blindness.

When Hal Darbo's marriage is imminent Lucas Salik becomes panic stricken. He devises an elaborate experiment with a young girl but, as the eminent heart surgeon finds out, the whole affair turns out to be far more dangerous than he envisaged.

Thrown together aboard the Ardent Spirit as it makes its perilous voyage from Tahiti to New Zealand, six sailors form an unshakeable bond through extraordinary circumstance.