When Cicadas Sing

On Boxing Day, at the start of the summer holidays in New Zealand, the Armstrong family pulls up at their holiday property and finds something alarming waiting for them. Before long the discovery is on the front pages and the evening television news. Over five short days, Alex and her younger brother Samuel, along with a Māori friend they have only just met, see their lives change.

Sibling rivalry, racist attitudes, and personal fears are all tested along the way, and a budding romance brings new self-awareness. The story unfolds in the calm Bay of Islands, where the constant chorus of cicadas is always in the background. Alex and Samuel are drawn into a chain of events that grows from puzzling to mysterious, then disturbing and frightening, and finally builds to a tense climax.