The Stolen Hours (Book Two of the Wild Isle Series)
1929. As the oldest daughter of a family of nine, Mhairi MacKinnon knows her father is struggling to support his large brood on the isolated island of St Kilda. The obvious solution is for her to marry, but choice is limited in their tight-knit community. So when the chance comes to accompany a married neighbour to Harris to meet a possibly eligible bachelor, Mhairi feels she has no choice but to go. At first glance, Alexander McLennan seems an attractive proposition, but when events take an ugly turn, Mhairi discovers too late where her affections truly lie. A harsh winter and the impending evacuation of the Kildans to mainland Scotland delay the fate she has come to dread, but she cannot put it off forever…
This is the second in Swan’s Wild Isle series about the interweaving fates of a group of Kildans and the mystery surrounding events on their last night before the evacuation, but it’s not necessary to have read The Last Summer to enjoy this novel (though perhaps it would have been easier to remember who was related to whom if I had read the first book).
The characters are complex, and the author is adept at evoking the rugged landscapes and wild seascapes, possibly because of her Scottish roots. Mostly she has succeeded in portraying the pre-industrial lifestyle of St Kilda, which is the only reason why occasional lapses are so noticeable. Farmers have known for centuries about the benefits of interbreeding livestock, but would someone living so far from the modern world really talk about the need to ‘pass on the best genes’ at a time when the study of genetics was in its infancy? But that’s a minor quibble. I’ve already bought the first book in the series and am looking forward to the third.
