Sunday Times bestseller: Top best novels of 2020 (Telegraph). McIlvanney Prize 2020. Long-list Highland Book Prize 2020.
Somewhere among the pines in a dark forest, someone is wandering—a ghost, a stranger, or the silent shadow of a woman? Far away in the fields, locals have seen bonfires and found stones arranged in a circle. They say it’s the work of a witch—the very same witch who left her home long ago and never returned. Since then, her husband Niall has learned to live again. By day he raises his daughter alone; by night he drowns his longing in alcohol. He never talks to ten-year-old Lauren about her mother. And the girl searches for answers in Tarot cards… She’d like to know what the locals are whispering about. Who is that woman’s ghost in a white coat wandering in the woods? Where did her neighbor, Ann-Marie, go in the dark night? And most importantly—what is her father keeping silent about? What does he hide in that room that is always locked?