by Margaret Elphinstone (Author)
May, 1831, and on a tiny island off the Isle of Man a lighthouse provides a harsh living for an unusual family. Lucy and Diya, husbandless and with three children between them, watch over the ancient light on Ellan Bride. Meanwhile the Scottish engineer, Robert Stevenson, is modernising the nation's lighthouses, and Ellan Bride and the future of the family, are under threat. When two surveyors arrive to assess the light, tension escalates to danger point.
Back Jacket
'The heart of this novel is a place described so finely and beguilingly that everyone who reads it will want to go to Ellan Bride.'
Helen Dunmore, The Times
assess the Ellan Bride light, tension escalates to danger point . . . 'Elphinstone's sense of place, time and atmosphere makes for eerie reading and gives the novel an impressive authenticity . . . breathtaking.'
Scotland on Sunday 'Hugely inventive . . . Exuberantly clever.'
Independent 'A rattling good read.'
Sunday Herald
Author Biography
Margaret Elphinstone is the author of eight novels, including The Incomer (1987), A Sparrow's Flight (1989), Islanders (1994), The Sea Road (2000), Hy Brasil (2002), Voyageurs (2003) and Light (2006). She has also had published short stories, poetry and two books on organic gardening. Her next book, And Some There Be, will be published by Canongate in 2009. She lives in Glasgow and teaches at the University of Strathclyde.