Bhalla Strand

Archaeology and dark mystery combine to create a haunting, utterly compelling debut

In the present day, Harriet Deveraux returns to the family home of Bhalla House on a remote Hebridean island estate following the untimely death of her parents. Torn between selling the house and turning it into a hotel, Harriet undertakes urgent repairs, accidently uncovering human remains. Who has been lying beneath the floorboards for a century? Were they murdered? Through diaries and letters she finds, Harriet discovers that the house was occupied at the turn of the century by distant relative Beatrice Blake, a young aristocratic woman who'd recently married renowned naturalist and painter Theodore Blake. With socialist and proto-environmentalist leanings Beatrice is soon in conflict with her autocratic new husband, who is distant, and more interested in Cameron, a mysterious young man from the island. As Beatrice is also drawn to Cameron, a single kiss sets off a chain of events that will change all their lives, leaving Harriet to assemble the jigsaw of clues 100 years later, as she obsessively chases the truth.

Sarah Maine was born in England but grew up partly in Canada. Bhalla Strand is her fiction debut.