The Island House

Posie Graeme-Evans' new novel plunges the reader into a past that never dies and a love that reaches out across a thousand years, as a young archaeologist unearths ancient secrets and Viking treasure on a remote Scottish island. Freya Dane has inherited Findnar, a small island off the east coast of Scotland from her long-estranged father. Michael Dane - like Freya, an archaeologist - has left her research notes and artifacts from the island's Viking and Christian past. But what he found is only the beginning of a story that began in 800 AD. It is then that Signy, a Pictish girl from the nearby mainland, narrowly escapes dying along with the rest of her family in a Viking raid. Taken in by the survivors from the new Christian monastery on Findnar, she learns their language and their ways - even the mysteries of writing. But before she can take her vows as a nun, she falls in love with Magni. Like Signy, he is a survivor of the raid, but unlike her, he is a proud follower of the Viking way. Forced to choose between her native religion, her adopted faith and the man she loves, Signy's life is set on a tragic course . . . As the island's terrifying past is revealed, it seems that Findnar may be as dangerous now in the twenty-first century as it was twelve hundred years ago.