Light: A Novel

May, 1831, and on a tiny island off the Isle of Man a lighthouse provides a harsh living for an unusual family. Lucy and Diya, husbandless and with three children between them, watch over the ancient light on Ellan Bride. Meanwhile the Scottish engineer, Robert Stevenson, is modernising the nation’s lighthouses, and Ellan Bride and the future of the family, are under threat. When two surveyors arrive to assess the light, tension escalates to danger point.

Reviews of Light: A Novel

"The heart of this novel is a place described so finely and beguilingly that everyone who reads it will want to go to Ellan Bride." Helen Dunmore, The Times "Fuses history and fantasy into an exuberantly clever romp, swathed in the mist and spray of northern seas." Boyd Tonkin, Independent "Elphinstone's sense of place, time and atmosphere make for eerie reading and give the novel an impressive authenticity." Scotland on Sunday "This is true experimental writing: careless of taboo, teeming with ideas, elusive yet utterly controlled." Guardian "Elphinstone's sense of place, time and atmosphere make for eerie reading and give the novel an impressive authenticity… breathtaking." Vanessa Curtis, Scotland on Sunday"