Salt and Skin

'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 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.