In the late seventeenth century - the great age of exploration - nothing was immune from inquiry. Through the lives of three remarkable individuals, The Island in the Mind plunges the reader irresistibly into a world of court intrigue and religious upheavals, bloodshed and sexual politics, empire, voyages, exotic discoveries and the new art-form of the time - opera. All are searching both for a way into the mystery of the human heart and for the vast, undiscovered southern island haunting the European imagination - Australia.