The Lost Lights of St Kilda

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Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth Much of what they wove in tweed or grew on the crofts went for rent to the island owner, the laird of Dunvegan, who was also their link to the mainland a hundred miles away. But the pressures of the modern world saw the young people leaving the island. I felt sad when I finished it and I feel that this fantastic book will stay with me for a long time. Fred - Spent one summer on St. Kilda a couple of years before the relocation and is now imprisoned by the Germans after the surrender at St Valery.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda, by Elisabeth Gifford

At one level, it is a simple love story: the love between one of the islanders, the young Chrissie Gillies, and Fred, a Cambridge student of geology who visits St Kilda in 1927 during the course of his studies. At another, it is a melancholy ode to a unique landscape and a lyrical lament for a lost way of life. I loved this book, the descriptions of the small island of St Kilda and the way the people who lived on this island was wonderful. I could almost smell the grass, feel the wind and here the sheep it was so vivid in my mind. This was a dual time line which jumped from 1922 or earlier and onto 1940 and onwards. It wasn’t at all confusing and I was carried along with this story from beginning to end. Skillfully written using a dual timeline seeped in true historical events , The Lost Lights of St Kilda depicts the harsh life of the small, isolated community on the Outer Hebridean island over 100 miles from the Scottish mainland. Furthermore it powerfully portrays the extent of that isolation that led to starvation and the community permanently evacuating St Kilda in 1930. The story moves between time periods effectively. Integrated into the novel are details of life on St. Kilda including religion, values, their language, and survival. The novel included these seamlessly. I learned how both World Wars impacted Scottish soldiers, especially Highlanders who lost their lives in great numbers. One of my favorite episodes involved two Gaelic-speaking soldiers making their way through Spain to attempt to get to safety. They are in the northern Basque-speaking area being hidden by a local family. When the woman of the house hears them speaking Gaelic, she recognizes that like her, they speak a minority (and oppressed) language. This spurs her to do more to see them to safety. As a linguist, and lover of minority languages (I studied Irish for more than 5 years), I found this scene very possible. I have witnessed similar bonds between minority language speakers even when they speak different languages.This is a compelling love story, meticulously researched and beautifully told. The sense of place is vivid, and the descriptions are so powerful that you can almost feel the chilly whistle of the wind. It is a haunting novel that lingers long in the imagination. The Lost Lights of St Kilda is a literary tribute to island life, the war, survival, bravery, hope, endurance and faith. Incorporating two timelines, this new novel from a passionate historical fiction storyteller relays a tale of two lovers, despair, hope and longing. Now, far away from her beloved St Kilda, Chrissie thinks longingly of Fred, but neither knows where the other is. Will Fred survive the war? Will Chrissie ever get to say the things she should have said all those years ago? This novel covers a truly fascinating period of Scottish history, beautifully written and well researched by the author. Established at the beginning of 2016, Cranachan is a small independent publisher and a fresh-face in Scottish publishing landscape. They are committed to finding new voices and writing talent for their adult fiction list and their children’s historical …

The Lost Lights of St Kilda: Elisabeth Gifford

Bill mentioned that they did something along the lines of the Rev. Donald Caskie, the Tartan Pimpernel, who ran a safe house in Marseilles until captured by the Gestapo. I began researching and realised that many of these escaping servicemen came from the 10,000 Scots of the Highland 51st Division who were not evacuated in 21940 at Dunkirk with the rest of the troops but captured at St Valery while fighting a rear guard action. The author’s gradual revelations of the events which led up to this momentous event very effectively captured the islanders’ sense of despair about the loss of their unique way of life, which however unsustainable it had by then become, had nurtured them for generations and was all they knew. She also demonstrated how tourism, whilst providing a source of income for the islanders – from the sale of their homemade tweed and birds’ eggs – also did much to undermine their self-confidence, as the visitors, seeing their simple, unsophisticated way of life and the identical nature of their dress, portraying them as objects of derision and curiosity, almost as though they were exotic exhibits rather than fellow human beings. As a result of all these insights, she enabled me to empathise with the profound sadness of their loss, as well as their fears and anxieties about what the future held for them.

I was excited to listen to this audio as I love war stories and this one sounded fascinating. I found the plot quite slow though. It was difficult to stay engaged in spots where the story seemed to focus more heavily on building the love story. The audio version also wasn't as gripping as I'd hoped. With the timeline switching between 1910-1930 on St Kilda, 1930-1940 on Morvern Peninsular on the west coast of Scotland, and 1940 in occupied France, and the narrative switching between the voices of Chrissie, her daughter Rachel Anne, and Fred, this is a compelling and beautifully written novel. The gradually unfolding love story which underpins Chrissie and Fred’s relationship feels both convincing and very poignant, but it is matched by a parallel love story, the one symbolising how the islanders felt about St Kilda and for a way of life which was so precious to them. In many ways this felt like paean not just to a wildly beautiful place, but also to the loss of a unique community.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda - Historical Novel Society

I have been a fan of Elisabeth Gifford's writing for many years and have reviewed all three of her previous novels here on Random Things. I had very high expectations for The Lost Lights of St Kilda, based on her previous work, and I have not been disappointed. Chrissie - One of the last occupants of the remote island of St. Kilda. Relocated to the Scottish mainland after a disastrous and isolated winter. Douglas Gifford to whom the book is dedicated. He went over with the BEF at the Normandy landings aged 18 with intelligence, here writing a letter to his fiancée in his billet (D Gifford)Juliet Conlin was born in London and grew up in England and Germany. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Durham. She works as a writer and translator and lives with her husband an … This is an emotional read. Through the authors prose we not only see the calm beauty of first love but also the horror of war. It is this juxtaposition of the two that forms the core of the novel. It is Fred’s frantic attempt at fleeing from France that set’s the pace and tension that leads to the stories climax. Will Fred escape France? Will he and Chrissie ever see each other again? These are questions that you’ll have to read the book to answer! While the romance is in part disrupted by a “big misunderstanding”, it actually makes sense in the context why the MC’s acted & believed the way they did, & it doesn’t feel contrived. I also appreciated that while Archie does try to make amends, he isn’t portrayed as a squeaky-clean, very happy character in his later life, which I would’ve found hard to believe. I confess I’d always thought St Kilda was an island but, as I learned from the book (and from the maps that form the gorgeous endpapers), it is in fact a group of islands. Hirta is the main island and the only one inhabited in 1927, when part of the book is set. However, to avoid confusion I’m going to refer to it, like the blurb does, as St Kilda. But what really grabbed me was the relationship between Chrissie and her beloved island of St Kilda. The remote Scottish island felt like it’s own character. The descriptions of the wild winters and the isolation which eventually doomed the inhabitants of the island in the 1920s was utterly gripping.