Hy Brasil
Margaret Elphinstone
Available as Paperback
‘Ingenious, gripping, thoughtful’ Boyd Tonkin, Independent
After fraudulently winning a writing competition, Sidony Redruth is sent by her editor to write the first-ever travel book on Hy Brasil, a near-mythical island somewhere in the Atlantic, whose very existence has been a matter of debate as late as the nineteenth century.
Elphinstone’s plot takes the island location as its starting point, throws in some old-fashioned piracy, a lost treasure, modern-day drug smuggling, political intrigue, an active volcano and a tragic love affair. Told through Sidony’s notes for her book, Hy Brasil has all the elements of an adult adventure story, but it is also a contemporary thriller with literary influences ranging from The Tempest and Treasure Island to Moby-Dick.
“Every other page, it seems, is gilded with erudite detail, bringing the saga templates to life … It’s a refreshing delight to read a novel of such extremely high calibre which interweaves mythical, magical and historical … Elphinstone is a worthy successor to writers like Linklater and Mackay Brown, developing their themes in the new century with a voice which is distinctly her own.”
herald
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“As warm and inviting as a hot spring on a clear winter day.”
the Times, On The Sea Road
“A canny, graceful writer whose prose is as clear and clean as Greenland air … This is historical fiction at its best, and the quality of Elphinstone’s prose shines from every page.”
globe And Mail (toronto) On The Sea Road.
Margaret Elphinstone
Margaret Elphinstone is the author of eight novels, including The Incomer (1987), A Sparrow’s Flight (1989), Islanders (1994), The Sea Road (2000), Hy Brasil (2002), Voyageurs (2003) and Light (2006). She has also had published short stories, poetry and two books on organic gardening. Her next book, And Some There Be, will be published by Canongate in 2009. She lives in Glasgow and teaches at the University of Strathclyde.