An Island Apart - Hardcover

Beckwith, Lillian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312104839 ISBN 13: 9780312104832

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1994

Synopsis

Kirsty MacLennan is the cook at Islay, a respectable guest-house in a Scottish suburb. When her employer retires and the irritable Isabel takes her place, Kirsty decides it is time to leave - but where will she go?
Her dilemma is unexpectedly solved by Islander Ruari MacDonald, one of the guests at Islay, who has come to the city in search of a wife. Accepting his proposal, Kirsty leaves her old life behind and takes up residence on Westisle, an idyllic small island uninhabited except for the MacDonald brothers.
As Kirsty joyfully rediscovers her Hebridean roots and adapts herself to the mysteries of marriage and the challenge of a rigorous new working routine, only one thing stands in her way - the silent, brooding presence of her brother-in-law.
A haunting story of love and loss, An Island Apart is one of Lillian Beckwith's most magical and elegiac evocations of island life.

About this title

About the Author:

Lillian Beckwith (Lillian Comber) was born in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, in 1916. She went to live in the Hebrides before the Second World War and stayed there for nearly twenty years, living first on Elgol, Isle of Skye, and later on the nearby and smaller Isle of Soay. Her hilarious initiation into crofting life is captured in the heart warming book 'The Hills is Lonely'. She acquired her own cottage, and living and working on her own croft gave rise to a series of magical Hebridean books such as 'The Sea For Breakfast'. She retired to the Isle of Man, where she died in 2004.

From AudioFile:

Vivien Heilbron reads this short, carefully crafted novel superbly. It begins when a single woman nearing forty agrees to leave her post as cook in a suburban guest house to marry a man she's just met. He takes her home to the remote Scottish island he shares with his brother. Their life together is surprisingly unpredictable. Villagers from nearby islands complete the story's small cast of characters, most of whom pepper their Scottish dialect with Gaelic phrases. Displaying a wide range of feeling, Heilbron distinguishes each voice effortlessly. Her delivery conveys both the harshness of island life and the haunting charm of this engrossing story. D.W.K. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0312104839
• ISBN 13: 9780312104832
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 166