Meh. This took me ages to finish as it wasn't very well written and kept meandering around. It's about a surfer called Kirra who travels back in time to pre-white settlement Australia to live with Tiarni and Narn, 2 indigenous Australians who are in love and want to be "joined" ( married) but are being hampered by the tribal customs and fokelore surrounding their respective clans. Kirra, Tiarni and Narn get caught up in a war where a spirit being has taken control of one tribe and through magic ochre and other devious means ( i.e. possession of Elders) has kidnapped women from the tribe and either killed them or held them hostage. With support from various wise Elders and other Spirit guides the three friends are separated and learn various tools and tricks to help overcome this malicious evildoer. but it is not without a great cost to one of them. In the end, Narn reveals a secret about himself to Kirra and then she is able to catch a wave back to her own time.
Very stilted dialog throughout made it hard to read and I felt the book could have been about 150pages shorter. I'm not sure that students will perservere like I did until the end but I was driven to find out whether or not Kirra got back to her own time. The author solves the language differences between Kirra ( and the tribes) by saying Tiarni has a magical gift and also that the ochre helps translate which works for a fantasy setting. ( )