News of the Dead

Set deep within the enigmatic Scottish Highlands, James Robertson's "News of the Dead" intricately weaves together three distinct eras in the secluded Glen Conach, a place where history blurs with myth. The narrative traverses centuries, beginning in ancient Pictland with the Christian hermit Conach, whose life of contemplation and miracles inspires legends later penned in the mystical Book of Conach. This ancient manuscript serves as a temporal anchor, resonating through time. In the early 19th century, the ambitious antiquarian Charles Kirkliston Gibb arrives in the Glen, drawn by its secrets and the fragile community centered around its grand house. Finally, in the present day, an elderly Maja, haunted by her own past, empathizes with young Lachie's whispers of a ghost. A winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the novel masterfully explores themes of refuge, memory, the creation of identity through storytelling, and the enduring echoes that bind generations to a shared landscape.