''A storyteller after my own heart'' Catherine Cookson

Pearce's simply sketched characters and neatly tucked plots can often take on a Hardyesque solidity from her empathic reach into period mores and her sparse, evocative landscapes: in this tale, set in a 19th-century Cornish fishing village, there's a warming May/December marriage, passion nobly sublimated to wider loyalties, and a splendidly sacrificial demise.

Maggie Care, 19, dusty and bareheaded, walks down over the moor track to the village of Polsinney, finding a bit of work with sharp-tongued widow Rachel Tallack, whose main source of income is from the sea. Rachel's son Brice is skipper of a fishing boat, still owned, to Rachel's disgust, by her brother-in-law - crippled, dying, bad-tempered Gus Tallack.

Maggie is a good worker, quiet, though willing to tell little, of a father, brother, and fiance drowned at sea. And her secret soon becomes obvious: Maggie is pregnant - so, despite Brice's growing love for her, she's forced to leave the Tallack home.

But, Maggie's rescuer will be the other Tallack man: 52-year-old 'Uncle Gus,' who's been deeply depressed, accepting the death sentence of his "wasting disease," glooming over his lost life as skipper and owner of a sail loft. Pleased to have the pleasure of removing a legacy from Rachel, Gus offers marriage; Maggie accepts - and, as baby Jim is born, the marriage opens up vistas for both. Still, through the years, the long-smoldering love of Brice and Maggie will flare into words - if never deeds. And, before the bittersweet close, there will be tumultuous sea action: wildly tilting decks slithering with nets full of silver fish; a wreck and survival ordeal; and a roaring, pounding finale - as a doomed man brings in a boat through heaving seas, sharp rocks, and shelving sands.

Again, Pearce displays her ability to absorb researched arcana into the story's tempo and ambience without a whiff of library dust; her seascapes are flecked with fresh, salty recognition's. A soothing domestic sampler, framed by fisherman-life excitement.