'Brilliant. With such a good ending, it had me slapping
the back cover closed with utmost satisfaction and respect. Hard recommend.'
Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites and Devotion'Until recently, there had been four of them. Unspeaking,
the three remaining Managans lugged their bags into Ewan's waiting car. Luda
and her children were not staying in the ghost house on Seannay that first
night. The window broken in the storm must first be fixed. Living on the islands
means being in constant conversation with the wind; negotiating where it will
and will not go.The Managans do not know this yet. It is a lesson they
will begin to learn a week later, watching the cliff collapse into the sea.'Luda, a
photographer, and her two teenagers arrive in the Scottish Northern Isles to
make a new life. Everywhere the past shimmers to the surface; the shifting
landscapes and wild weather dominates; the line between reality and the uncanny
seems thin here. The teenagers forge connections, making friends of neighbours,
discovering both longing and dangerous
compulsions. But their mother - fallible, obsessive, distracted - comes up hard
against suspicion. The persecution and violence that drove the island's
historic witch trials still simmers today, in isolated homes and church
buildings, and where folklore and fact intertwine.A compelling and magically immersive novel about a family on
the edge and a community ensnared by history, that gathers to an unforgettable
ending.