Told in two timelines, 1927 and 1940, this a story of love – between two people, and for an island and an endangered way of life. In ‘The Lost Lights of St Kilda’ by Elisabeth Gifford, the beautiful yet harsh landscape of the island is made vividly alive. This is a delight to read, a novel about love, trust, betrayal and forgiveness.
In 1940 Fred Lawson, a Scottish soldier from the 51st Highland Division, is imprisoned at Tournai, captured at St Valery in retreat as other soldiers were being evacuated at Dunkirk. Through the darkest moments of fighting, his memories of St Kilda sustain him. ‘It was your face that had stayed with me as we fought in France. It was you who’d sustained me when we were hungry and without sleep for nights as we fought the retreating action back towards the Normandy coast.’ Fred escapes and heads for Spain, forced to trust strangers, not knowing who is a friend and who is an informer, but drawn on by his memories of St Kilda.
At the same moment in Scotland, a teenage daughter longs to know more of her birth. Says Rachel Anne, ‘My mother says I am her whole, world, and she is mine, but all the same I would still like to know at least the name of my father.’
In 1927, geology student Fred travels to the remote Scottish island of St Kilda with his university friend Archie Macleod whose father owns the island. No one knows that three years later the island will be abandoned, the population on the edge of starvation. Archie, the laird’s son, has a privileged position on the island. As a teenage boy he played with the island children, play acting at the work their fathers do, learning their future trades – farming, catching puffins and fulmars – on the dangerous cliffs. And he flirts with Chrissie Gillies. But by the time Archie returns to the island in 1927 with Fred, he has developed an arrogance and a liking for whisky. Over the long summer months, Fred falls in love with the island and with Chrissie. Everything changes when tragedy strikes.
This is a beautiful read, contrasting the softness and closeness of romance with the harsh facts of life as the difficulties of island survival are laid bare. Life in the summer months seems an idyll of isolation and peace, a return to the basics of life that matter. But inevitably winter approaches and, as the real world is complicated, a misunderstanding occurs. But hope is never abandoned. Despite being separated by the years and by lies, Fred and Chrissie never forget each other.
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The dual time line was manager well within this book and there were some interesting scenes. But it just wasn't the sort of book that I enjoy - and for that reason I can't provide a full review.

A well written novel switching. Between the war in Europe and on st kinda I. Scotland.. the island is slowly dying as the population dies out and the young move away. Well researched detail of how life must have been. Quite predictable but rich in detail and enjoyable characters

The Lost Lights of St Kilda is historical fiction set mainly in two time periods, 1927 and the 1940s, following the story of Chrissy, a native of the island and Fred and Archie, visiting students from Cambridge University. At first I wasn’t really involved in the plot which is basically a romance, the story of a love triangle complete with all the misunderstandings and anguish that involved. I found it rather predictable, But the highlights of the book for me are the descriptions of St Kilda, its history, the importance to the islanders of the bird life, and their isolation and the poverty they endured. The account of the island’s evacuation is particularly moving.

After a slow start, the book picks up pace and I became more involved in the story. It’s a book of two halves really – the story of the last years of life on St Kilda and a war story. It’s very well researched and Elisabeth Gifford explains in her acknowledgements that the characters are loosely based on the people who lived on St Kilda whilst remaining fictional, although some of the characters featuring in the chapters about Fred’s wartime experience are based on real people. She lists the books she used for her research – books about the island, about Atlantic seabirds and journals and biographies of soldiers who were captured during the Second World War and their escapes, all of which brought her novel to life for me.

My thanks to the publishers for my review copy via NetGalley.

What a wonderful book. Beautifully written. Loved how the stories of Chrissie and Fred developed .and then to read of Rachel Anne's take on the events
What a hard life it was for the inhabitants of St Kilda and how moving to read of Fred's journey to get back home.
This would make a great film
Highly recommended

A really well written book with great characters. The students of St Kilda forgotten by the government lost livelihoods and were forced to move to the mainland.. A tale of love and desperation.

This is a beautifully written and engaging story. I found the romance of Fred and Chrissie secondary to the love the inhabitants of St. Kilda had for their island. The descriptions of both the beauty and harshness of the island were captivating and I felt the despair of the islanders when they accepted that their time on the island was over. A truly special novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thanks to Atlantic Books and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve always been fascinated by St Kilda and I think I probably own nearly every book ever published about it. I always thought that if I were ever to write a novel, it would probably be about St Kilda.

For those unaware, St Kilda is a Scottish island in the Atlantic Ocean which had been continuously inhabited from the Bronze Age up until 1930 when the island was evacuated due to an irretrievable population crash and the logistical difficulty of getting necessary supplies to an island essentially cut off during the Winter.

The book is historical fiction/romance following the story of Chrissy, Fred and Archie. Fred and Archie are Cambridge students summering on the island and Chrissy is a native St Kildan.

The real strength of this novel are the descriptions of the island itself. The author did a really great job at capturing the unique geography such as the bay and the treacherous sea cliffs where the cragsmen gathered eggs. I also really liked the descriptions of the birdlife and the importance of the birds to the St Kildans for their survival. It did sometimes feel a little like the author was trying to get through a tick list of well know St Kildan things to mention. "Cleits"? Tick. "The Amazon's House"? Tick. "Fulmar oil"? Tick. It's not necessarily a bad thing I just found it a little contrived.

I wasn’t really into the main romance. I didn’t understand why Chrissy fell in love with Fred so quickly, or at all really. They didn’t have much chemistry, had almost nothing in common and they hardly even spoke to each other. Archie was also cartoonishly horrible at some points. I did enjoy the glimpses we got of the other St Kildans though and I think the author was able to capture some of their spirit.

The account of the evacuation was genuinely moving, and the devastation of this event was sensitively captured.

Fred’s story of making his way home part a bit of a snoozefest, probably because I didn’t really care about him as a character and didn’t really care what happened to him. Sorry Fred! I would have liked some more scenes set in St Kilda as that’s where the book really shined.

An atmospheric and beautifully crafted novel about survival, regret and never giving up on true love. In 1927 Fred Lawson spends a summer on the island of St Kilda to complete a geological survey for his degree. Whilst there he meets and falls in love with Chrissie. But a misunderstanding orchestrated by his friend Archie sees him leave the island doubting Chrissie's loyalty. Cut to 1940 and he is on the run from a POW camp. The only thing that sustains him is the thought of finding Chrissie again. We learn that in the years since he left, the islanders have been forced to leave St Kilda when conditions become unendurable. How will he find his lost love? A chance meeting with his old friend Archie brings him news of Chrissie that shocks and bolsters his determination to survive. The Lost Lights of St Kilda is a wonderful book that affirms life and warms the heart.

Two interweaving narratives, each as fascinating as the other, and a romance that made me cry, Beautifully written. Utterly captivating. What’s not to love?

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this ARC.

I liked the premise for this book and found it a very interesting and enjoyable read. I thought the book was written very well and I was really drawn in to the story. I loved reading of the people, families living on St Kilda, their lives and the hardships they faced daily. The book had such likeable, believable characters who told their own parts in the narrative. The story covers a period of some years going into and briefly beyond World War II, and is about love, loss, lost chances and moments. A really lovely read that captured and held my attention from the beginning to the end. I would highly recommend this book.

This is a novel of two main halves; the story moves back and forth between Chrissie's time growing up on the island and Fred's point of view as a prisoner of war in 1940 trying to get home. Occasionally we also join Rachel Anne in Scotland in 1940 trying to understand her heritage of the island of St Kilda.

Elisabeth Gifford paints a vivid picture of life on St Kilda, the remains of a community that had lost more and more people to opportunities on the mainland, to a point where continuing to live on the island was no longer sustainable. I really valued this glimpse of another time and a completely different way of life and the descriptions of the starkly beautiful but unforgiving land and sea. The focus on their environment, community, the animals and the seasons was humbling and the story of their eventual evacuation and loss of all they had ever known was devastating.

The other half set in war torn Europe follows Fred's struggles to avoid the enemy while helped by many ordinary people acting in extraordinary ways to resist and save people in dangerous situations. He reminisces about his time on the island with Chrissie and begins to question what is worth fighting for.

I enjoyed the relationship between Fred and Chrissie but for me it was secondary to the story of the island community which touched me deeply. It's sad to think of an island and its people with thousands of years' of history and traditions now lost forever.

I gave this book 4 out of 5.

I really didn't think i would enjoy this book so much. What a beautifully written story about such a fascinating subject. I had to research to see if this place really existed and wow it does and the story is based on real events. Set in two timelines when Fred visited the island for a summer project and then during `WW2. I really loved this book.

Elisabeth Gifford paints a wonderful picture of St Kilda in the first half of the 20th Century, describing the hardships and eventual forced departure of the population. This is then combined with a romance, a single parent and a war time escape.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and would strongly recommend it others..

Thanks to Atlantic Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to review it.

I have enjoyed previous books by this author and was delighted to get an opportunity to read Elisabeth Gifford's new novel. I really enjoyed this book, I had never heard of St. Kilda before and loved how this island was at the heart of this story.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC

What an incredible read this was. Elisabeth Gifford is a new author to me. I thoroughly enjoyed this remarkable book. It was so well written. I was attracted to the book by the gorgeous cover so atmospheric and hauntingly beautiful. The characters are fabulous and it was a great story line. It certainly left an impression on me. Outstanding.

On the remote archipelago of St Kilda the people have struggled to maintain their existence eking what crops they can from the soil, weaving tweed from the fleeces of their sheep, taking care of their cows, harvesting the seabirds & helping each other. It is a hard life but St Kilda can be a beautiful place. In 1927 two Cambridge students came to stay to study the geology & artefacts of the place. The life of island girl, Chrissie Gilles, has always been dazzled by Archie- the laird's son, but it is Fred she falls in love with.

In 1940 Fred is trying to escape from France after his regiment had missed Dunkirk. In the danger & hardships of trying to return to Scotland the memories of St Kilda & Chrissie keep him going & in Morvern Chrissie's daughter, Rachel Ann tries to find out about her father & about the island where she was born & where the inhabitants had been forced to leave in order to survive.

This was a wonderful story. St Kilda was described so well I could smell the peat smoke & hear the gales screeching around the cottages. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this lovely book.

"And I wondered if I too might like to go on that boat and travel to Dunvegan or to lands beyond. But curious though I was, I could not think how I could ever leave one day and give up my home here on the island..."

In 1927, Fred Lawson takes up a summer job on St Kilda, a beautiful and remote self-sufficient archipelago in the Outer Hebrides. Whilst he's there he falls in love with one of the islanders Chrissie, both of them forgetting that eventually Fred will have to leave to go back to his studies in England. Fast-forward to 1940 and Fred is a soldier in the Second World War. He's been captured and is in a prisoner-of-war camp. He sets off on a journey of escape across occupied territory aided by the French Resistance, the danger outweighed by his determination to make his way back to Chrissie. The only problem is that St Kilda was evacuated in 1930, and he doesn't know where to find her...

The Lost Lights of St Kilda weaves together Chrissie and Fred's story, with alternating chapters from their perspectives in 1927 and 1940. Beautifully written, this book paints a vivid portrait of an isolated and forgotten community - it's one of those rare moments where you read a book and feel like you've actually been transported to the place you're reading about. I read most of this in one sitting, and it's a wonderful piece of historical fiction. I can't recommend it enough.

Such a lovely escapist read for current times, based on the factual history of the lives of the last islanders of St Kilda in the Outer Hebrides. The islands, now a World Heritage site, home to rare and endangered bird species were the setting to a developing love story between an islander and a visitor. You will find yourself swept away from modern life to a spectacular harsh landscape and a community struggling to hold on to their way of life. Visitors to the island form a fascination for the residents and a love story begins to develop interrupted by the Second World War.

The book was very well researched and I’m looking forward to reading other books by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley the author and Corvus publishers for an Arc of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atlantic Books for this advanced reader's copy in return for my honest review. A love story set on a remote Scottish island. Captivating, well written and researched. I loved this book.