Silma Hill - Softcover

'First Time Solo perfectly evokes the transience and fractured normality of wartime life...navigated with compassion, humour and grace.' [****]The Skinny 'First Time Solo is an engrossing, consistently readable debut from a skilful and sensitive writer.' London Jazz News 'Finely-crafted, hugely compassionate and often very funny, First Time Solo is an assured debut flight by an author to watch.' Zoe Strachan, author of Negative Space and Ever Fallen in Love 'Maloney uses a confident and authentic grasp of era and setting to create a compelling set of characters facing issues of friendship, loyalty, ambition and revenge. An engrossing read.' J David Simons, author of The Credit Draper, and An Exquisite Sense of What is Beautiful

From the author of the Not the Booker short-listed debut novel First Time Solo, come a fastpaced romantic historical thriller. Accusations of witchcraft are sparked by the unearthing of a pagan idol in a remote Highland village and exacerbated by generations-old social divisions. The Reverend Burnett is the unpopular minister at Abdale. Behind the manse lies Silma Hill, which has a circle of ancient standing stones at its summit. Burnett lives with his sixteen year old daughter Fiona who he treats no better than a servant. Old Sangster unearths a pagan icon in the peat beneath Silma Hill and hands it over to Burnett, who plans to write a paper on it for the Historical Antiquities Society in Edinburgh. Hours after finding the relic, Sangster is found dead. Fiona is drawn into accusations of witchcraft, fuelled by hatred of her father. As hysteria in the village builds, will Fiona's father be able to put aside his pride to save his daughter or will she be consumed by the fire of anger, fear and superstition that has enveloped everyone?