Sea Beans are seed pods that fall from vines in the tropics and are carried around the globe on ocean currents. Wherever they are found washed up on shores, local folklore has turned them to talismans and charms for anyone that finds them. When Sally Huband moves to the windswept Shetland Islands and pregnancy triggers a chronic illness, she is forced to slow down. She takes to the beaches and her search for a sea bean begins.

On Shetland’s stormy shores, Huband finds the world washed up at her feet, discovering a wealth of treasures and curiosities. There are orcas too and the shriek of sea birds overhead. Huband’s beachcombing path takes her further afield too, from the Faroese archipelago to the Orkney islands, and the Dutch island of Texel. It opens a world of ancient myths, fragile ecology, and deep human history. It brings her to herself again.

Winner of the Highland Book Prize, 2023 Sea Bean is a message in a bottle of the interconnection of our oceans, communities and ourselves, and an invitation to feel belonging when we are adrift.