The Lost Lights of St Kilda

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It was really interesting to read about St. Kilda & the unique community & way of life that existed there. I really felt how much the place & the community meant to the villagers, & how hard it was to leave. The book seems well researched. From what I can tell, Archie, Chrissie, & Fred are all fictional characters, but there are mentions of real historical figures including Mary Gillies from the island & Nancy Wake who ran escape networks out of occupied France. Equally well realised are the characters. Fred is a strong lead protagonist. I admired his overall outlook in life. I yearned for Fred’s survival and wished that he could be reunited with his love. In Chrissie, Fred’s romantic interest, we see a woman with power, endurance and a toiling spirit. These characters will be sure to earn a place in your mind before the close of the book. Their respective pathways and the fight for survival to find love again will be sure to appeal to any reader’s heart. An absolutely stunning novel that plays out on St Kilda, the tiny North Atlantic archipelago that contains the westernmost islands of the Scottish Outer Hebrides, and which - for more than 2000 years - was home to a small population of hunter-gatherers who knew very little of the mainland and international politics. Gifford's tale follows the St Kilda community in the three years before it was finally evacuated in 1930, and its depictions of the islands and the people it supported, as well as the sweeping love story that lies at its heart, will live long in the memory. St kilda has intrigued me for many years and I think this book epitomizes what life was really like for chrissie her family and the many St. kildans, this beautifully written book was really outstanding iam quite speechless I never wanted it to end a life of sheer determination there love of god keeping them going at times. 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.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda: *SHORTLISTED FOR THE RNA The Lost Lights of St Kilda: *SHORTLISTED FOR THE RNA

Isobel McDonald is Curator of Social History at Glasgow Museums. Having originally studied archaeology at Edinburgh University, she had expected to go into fieldwork, however a chance conversation with a friend about job opportunities at the British Mu … I think if there had been more focus on the war and history and less on the romance it would've been superb. And so I wanted to write a book that mapped the tension, the creative tension, between those extrem … The loss of their young men in the First World War, together with the difficulties of scratching a living in such inhospitable circumstances, finally proved too much for the islanders, and, in 1930, the last handful of St Kildans were evacuated to the mainland. Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuthI 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.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda, by Elisabeth Gifford

My actual Irish family history is lost, as all records were blown up in the Easter rising and as poor famine immigrants, nothing written survives from my great grandparents who came over from Dublin. I married a Scot and over twenty years we spent a lot of time with family across Scotland, and many holidays in the Hebrides where the Gaelic culture and language are still vibrant - but on the cusp of change. I chose to listen to this book on audio and the narrators were excellent. I highly recommend listening to it.St Kilda is a wild and rugged island group off the coast of Scotland. Quite a way off the coast of Scotland. Lewis and Harris are part of the Outer Hebrides, and are hardly within cooee. St Kilda’s home to thousands of seabirds, particularly gannets and fulmars which earn the islanders their livelihood. It’s pretty much subsistence living – it has to be as there’s no regular postal service, no radio communication, so the locals rely on visiting fishing boats and such for mail and supplies. This was a fascinating story and I loved how it was told. To think that for many, many years people could live on this breathtaking island with all of its restrictions and beauty. My copy of this book was an audiobook, narrated by Fiona McNeill, Geoffrey Newland, and Diane Brooks, who respectively voice Chrissie, Fred, and Rachel Anne, Chrissie’s daughter. The narration was done in Scottish accents, which for a hapless American like me took a little time to get used to! I thought the narration was well-done, though, and the narrators’ musical voices helped set the stage.

The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Gifford 9781786499059 - The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Gifford

Bill’s son, my father-in-law, was part of the subsequent Normandy invasion and at the Bremerhaven victory parade when the reformed 51st Highland Division marched with massed pipes. I was not much more than two years old when some thirty of us left the island. We had lived together all our lives in one village, sharing what little we had, but after the evacuation we were scattered across the mainland. It wasn’t long before many of the old ones and the children faded away from TB or from broken hearts, among them my grandmother. So now the loss of the island and our dear ones is too great for my mother to brook any questions from me.Established in 2011 and based in Edinburgh, Polaris Publishing Ltd are immensely proud to publish award-winning works by world-class authors. We are committed to unearthing exciting voices and publishing important, thoughtful and gripping stories with … The reformed 51st in parade kilts The themes of weather and nature on the St Kilda islands are essential to the plot and the characters - how did you research these unique elements of the story? 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.