Grippingly vivid and pacey' The Times'A seven-year old girl on a seventy-foot yacht, for ten years, over fifty thousand miles of sailing … a fantastic story of a truly Odyssean journey across all the world's great oceans - but is also the inspiring story of the developing of a restless and inquiring mind' Simon Winchester'An astonishing almost day-by-day account of a hazardous journey and its legacy' Telegraph'This is a story of an epic childhood journey, so exciting and so shocking it is hard to know whether You're reading about a dream or a nightmare… Wavewalker is thrilling, horrifying, beautifully written - I couldn't put it down' Ed BALLSAged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state showed any interest in what was happening to the children. Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child deprived of safety, friendships, schooling and occasionally drinking.