The Sound is set in the 1820s, in the violent and lawless world just before the English established colonial law in Western Australia. It is a historical fiction about the men of many nations who made their way across the southern waters of Australia from Tasmania to WA, plundering seal colonies, and stealing women and children from indigenous communities as they went. It follows the journey of Wiremu Heke of Aramoana, who begins his journey on the quest to avenge the destruction of his village, but ends it older, wiser, and looking at the world in an entirely different way.