The Lost Lights of St Kilda
Elisabeth Gifford
The Lost Lights of St Kilda brings together two strands of lost Scottish history, the evacuation in 1930 of Scotland’s remotest island, St Kilda, and the quest of a soldier from the 51st Highland Division, stranded in France after Dunkirk, to find his way back to the girl he once loved on the island. ‘Elisabeth takes this nugget of fascinating history and turns it into a gorgeous, melancholy love story.’ (The Times)
1927: When Fred Lawson takes a summer job on St Kilda, little does he realise that he has joined the last community to ever live on that beautiful, isolated island. Only three years later, St Kilda will be evacuated, the islanders near-dead from starvation. But for Fred, that summer – and the island woman, Chrissie, whom he falls in love with – becomes the very thing that sustains him in the years ahead.
1940: Fred has been captured behind enemy lines in France and finds himself in a prisoner-of-war camp. Beaten and exhausted, his thoughts return to the island of his youth and the woman he loved and lost. When Fred makes his daring escape, prompting a desperate journey across occupied territory, he is sustained by one thought only: finding his way back to Chrissie.
The Lost Lights of St Kilda is a sweeping love story that will cross oceans and decades. It is a moving and deeply vivid portrait of two lovers, a desolate island, and the extraordinary power of hope in the face of darkness.
