"The dead of night, Jess, I wish they'd leave me alone."
Jessamin Wade’s husband is dead – a death she feels wholly responsible for. As a way of coping with her grief, she keeps him ‘alive’ in her imagination – talking to him everyday, laughing with him, remembering the good times they had together. She thinks she will ‘hear’ him better if she goes somewhere quieter, away from the hustle and bustle of her hometown, Brighton. Her destination is Glenelk in the Highlands of Scotland, a region her grandfather hailed from and the subject of a much-loved painting from her childhood.
Arriving in the village late at night, it is a bleak and forbidding place. However, the house she is renting – Skye Croft – is warm and welcoming. Quickly she meets the locals. Her landlord, Fionnlagh Maccaillin, is an ex-army man with obvious and not so obvious injuries. Maggie, who runs the village shop, is also an enigma, startling her with her strange ‘insights’. But it is Stan she instantly connects with. Maccaillin’s grandfather and a frail, old man, he is grief-stricken from the recent loss of his beloved Beth.
All four are caught in the past. All four are unable to let go. Their lives entwining in mysterious ways, can they help each other to move on or will they always belong to the ghosts that haunt them?
From the author of the bestselling The Haunting of Highdown Hall.
Professional Reviews
Excellent Spiritual Love Story
A warm, engaging story with an unusual, spiritual feel and an element of mystery, set in the Scottish Highlands. Struthers is an accomplished writer, always in control of the plotting and pacing and there are no exceptions with this particular story of love, loss and letting go.
Jessamin Wade loses her husband in a car crash and circumstances lay the blame firmly at her emotional door. Unable to let go, Jess heads for a remote retreat in the Highlands, the location prompted by the memory of a much loved childhood painting. Is it coincidence or something else which brings together a set of people embarked on the same journey - that of trying to let go of past loves and the dark, emotional trauma caused by war.
I love the setting in this book and there’s some excellent sexual tension around Jess and the enigmatic hero of the piece, Maccaillin.
Highly recommended read for those who like an intelligent, grown-up love story with a ghostly backbone and some dangerous meanderings in the mist.
Haunting
I want to live in Skye Croft, let me just get that out there first. Oh my gosh, this book…
My disclaimer is that I knew before the first page that I would enjoy this book based on reading Shani’s past writing. She has a magical way with prose, her descriptions are sublime, and the reader is submerged into the emotion of every scene.
I wouldn’t exactly call Jessamine a ghost story. That’s just too simple. It’s a haunting story of lost love and guilt and how the past can destroy the present by holding on too tightly. It’s also a mystery that unravels slowly and draws you in to the point you think you won’t be able to breathe without answers.
Jessamin was blissfully happy and desperately in love with her slightly older husband, but blames herself for his death because of a stupid fight before the accident that took his life. He took care of her in life and in death, left her financially, if not emotionally secure. She continues to hold onto him, convinced he is still with her in spirit. James is the only thing she wants really, so, she retreats to a place that did give her comfort as a child – an old painting of an unnamed loch in Scotland. Her only clue to its whereabouts is the area her grandfather came from.
Glenelk has a tiny population and is deep enough in the Highlands to retain a touch of Celtic magic. Shani Struthers captures the entire area with such vivid enticing imagery, that there was a couple of times that I stopped reading to look at pictures. She made me want to be there among the people, glens, fairy pools, and mountains.
The Highlands are almost a character in there own right in this book, one of a number of fascinating characters. Each so fully developed, that they were ready to walk of the pages into real life.
It’s through loss that Jessamin connects with the other main characters, each holding onto their own almost as tightly as she is. The problem for all of them is moving forward means letting go and none of them are capable of doing it alone.
I laughed and I cried reading this. I felt the characters exhilaration when life began to creep back into their blood, but also their fear. If I can described it, it would be like emotions tied up and as a reader I was desperate for the characters to break free.
This really is a must read. A absolute gem of a read, especially now during the winter months when it’s perfect for curling up by a fire.
Loved this Book
Heartwarming lovely book, great characters, easy reading. Reminiscent in parts of Wuthering heights and even Jane Eyre in places.
You can relate to the characters & are transported to the locus and into the wilderness of Scotland & I live down south!
Thank you for this book, will keep an eye out for more by this author!
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