Author's new book inspired by bone found on Caithness beach
An author who lives between Caithness and the United States is launching her new book at an event in Thurso Library on Friday, October 13.
'The Bone on the Beach' is a contemporary mystery and ghost story from Fiona Gillan Kerr who lives in a restored crofter’s cottage on the Caithness coast.
While on a walk on the beach one afternoon, she found a bone tangled in seaweed which had swept in on a storm surge and stranded at the high tide mark. Her first question: “Whose bone is it?” Her second: “Why was it abandoned to the whims and tides of the ocean?”
For Fiona this was the beginning of a story reaching back into the past. Here, in this sparsely populated landscape, where history dictated that "homes would be burned and villages abandoned" for centuries, legends continue to haunt, and the past is remembered by each succeeding generation. “It is ultimately the beauty and the mystery of the Highlands where I live,” she says, “which inspires me to write and imagine other lives and other times.”
The Bone on the Beach is described as "the Celtic legend of Deirdre of the Sorrows reimagined for the modern day".
Defined as the most tragic of all Celtic legends, it is the tale of a young girl, trapped by men’s perceptions and the expectations of her community. Her only means of escape endangers her life and the lives of those she loves.
For more information on the novel and the author, please visit her website at: www.theboneonthebeach.com
The Bone on the Beach is from Ringwood Publishing – an independent, non-profit publishing house based in Glasgow.
The event in Thurso Library is from 5-6.30pm on Friday, October 13 and the author will read excerpts from the novel and sign copies.