In this stunningly assured, immersive & vividly atmospheric first novel, a young woman comes face-to-face with the volatile, haunted wilderness of the Scottish Highlands. Polly Vaughan is trying to escape the ravaging guilt of a disturbing incident in London by heading north to the Scottish Highlands. As soon as she arrives, this spirited, funny, alert young woman goes looking for drink, drugs & sex
- finding them all quickly, & unsatisfactorily, with the barman in the only pub. She also finds a fresh kind of fear, alone in this eerie, myth-drenched landscape. Increasingly prone to visions or visitations
- floating white shapes in the waters of the loch or in the woods
- she is terrified & fascinated by a man she came across in the forest on her first evening, apparently tearing apart a bird. Who is this strange loner? & what is his sinister secret? Kerry Andrew is a fresh new voice in British fiction; one that comes from a deep understanding of the folk songs, mythologies & oral traditions of these islands. Her powerful metaphoric language gives Swansong a charged, hallucinatory quality that is unique, uncanny & deeply disquieting.