The Devil's Claw (Paperback)

2013 - the year the Great Pandemic began. Bree is confronted with the horror of a new plague. It is highly contagious. A close friend of the family succumbs to the disease the Spanish call "The Devil's Claw." She is powerless to save the woman.
Bree, her brother and sister, and two surviving teenagers from next door, face many dangers as law and order disintegrate. Parental absence means they are on their own. Bree realises it's imperative they use her father's yacht as a means to escape, to seek isolation on a mysterious Pacific island.
Malcolm, a wayward street kid proves to be a wild card on the voyage, creating friction and much unwanted heat.
They rescue a child from drowning on the day of departure for the South Seas. She remains a mystery, known only as Fish.
Seven crammed in a yacht are "like peas in a pod."
Storms, personality conflicts and the build-up of stress make survival in the face of starvation an odious experience.
Life on a tropical island takes many turns. They find themselves wedged between frightened natives and a band of malevolent pirates.
The bandits capture Bree. Her will to survive and rescue others brings about changes in relationships as she and her crew make a stand against their relentless enemy.
They often bait and bag one another out making relations and romance equally rocky.
She becomes aware that an Aboriginal antidote for fever, which she had possessed since the Kimberley venture, may offer a solution to the dreaded virus.