A Quiet Tide is the fictionalised account of Irish botanist Ellen Hutchins who lived in Bantry in County Cork at the start of the nineteenth century. To everyone else she appears a meek and sickly young woman, tied to her once-grand family home. But in botany Ellen forges her own way towards self expression, discovering art, the natural world and unexpected and empowering friendships along the way. Her reputation among other botany enthusiasts grows and, for her cousin Tom Taylor, she feels a love she can never fully articulate. This is a heartbreaking story of restrained passion and unrealised potential as Ellen, shackled by family crises and ill-health, seeks to find meaning in her small but rich life at the outer wild edge of Europe.