The Wilderness

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What to expect

A beautifully observed, wry novel of the dislocation of family life and a marriage, and of loss and love, set on the western coast of Scotland.

Once it was a family home. Now they are all at sea...

When Anna and David receive a phone call late one evening, their lives are upturned. Within minutes, they are travelling to the west coast of Scotland, preparing to care for two young sisters, tragically and suddenly orphaned.

It's a beautiful place, the heather is in bloom, the birds wheel above the waves, the deer graze peacefully in the distance. But the large granite house is no longer a home for the girls, and Anna knows she can never take the place of their mother. Then David invites his friend to stay, to 'ease them through' and Anna finds herself increasingly isolated, with everything she - and the girls - once knew of life discarded and overruled by a man of whom she is deeply suspicious.

(P) 2022 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Critics Review

  • Praise for The Wilderness:

  • ‘Almost indecently readable . . . Duguid keeps the tension almost at boiling point

    Daily Mail
  • Darkly beautiful and exquisitely written, I loved this haunting story

    Eve Chase
  • Pungently atmospheric . . . beautiful descriptions

    Metro
  • Evocative, stunning and so beautifully written, the landscape of the wilderness smothers Anna as effectively as her marriage has always done. A powerful book about how the needs of men often consume the women and girls around them. I absolutely loved it

    Araminta Hall
  • Insightful, moving, and with a gloriously described location where nature rules’

    Peterborough Telegraph

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