The Sound is a historical fiction about the men of many nations who made their way across the southern waters of Australia from Tasmania to Western Australia, plundering seal colonies, and stealing women and children from indigenous communities as they went.

Set in the 1820s, it captures the violent and lawless world just before the English established their own law in Western Australia. The narrative follows the journey of Wiremu Heke of Aramoana, in the South Island of New Zealand, who begins his journey on a quest to avenge the destruction of his village, but ends it in a way he never could have dreamed.