'Wonderful and moving' Clare Chambers

'Utterly absorbing' Sunday Post

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WINSTON GRAHAM HISTORICAL PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE

Jamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn't recognise her, but she remembers him at once. Not that she plans to mention it. She has no intention of trusting anyone enough to let herself be vulnerable again.

A lifetime ago, growing up in a Highland glen, Jamesina Ross wrote songs about the land and the kin who had worked it for generations. But her music was no match for the violence her community faced in the Highland Clearances. Jamesina has borne the disfigurements of that day ever since, on her face and inside her head. Her lodger thinks that if she would only dare to open the past, she might have the chance of a future.

This is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away.
A beautiful exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, its contrariness and its awkward, surprising joys, this is a story about resilience, memory, resurrection - and those parts of who we are that nobody can take away.

"Part understated love story and part lament for a people and way of life brushed aside to make way for a more profitable commodity . . . this affecting novel attests to a heartfelt faith in the power of song to heal wounds and keep memories alive" - Herald

"Her best yet . . . Beautifully written and utterly absorbing, it is a fiction fashioned from fact" - Sunday Post

"There is nothing tentative about Sally Magnusson's new novel; it is a fine piece of craftsmanship . . . This is a delightful and sympathetic novel, beautifully written" - Scotsman, Books of the Year

"Magnusson tackles the dual timescale with perfect assurance in a beautifully written novel that makes you think and feel at the same time" - The i Paper

"A deeply moving, astonishing and beautiful book. Several times its unexpected twists took me by surprise and I caught my breath . . . What a remarkable, gifted and courageous person Sally Magnusson is, steeped in the power of words, a story teller, driven by conscience, our best commentator on national events. There is nothing sentimental here. It's a wonderful book about hope and the possibility of healing" - Church of Scotland Magazine