The Loch of the Bees

By Donald S Murray

From the author of the prizewinning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes an evocative and highly original fictional rendering of a Hebridean island across the centuries. Continuing his elegiac Lewis novels, Donald S. Murray offers a remarkable new work that sweeps from the eighth century to the present day.

Layering interlinked stories of successive generations like blankets of peat, he allows echoes of ancient lives to surface in the present. This is a novel that mirrors the shifting rhythms of wind and tide, where the struggles and joys of past lives are refracted in the heartaches and hopes of modern-day islanders.

As in his award-winning previous novels, the ordinary is suffused with quiet wonder; every place and gesture carries memories and meaning. Ultimately, this is a novel about continuity. The land holds its secrets, letting the past break surface in sometimes surprising ways. Murray’s compassionate gaze reminds us that time can be viewed as a circle, where the living are in constant conversation with those who came before.