- Paperback: 768 pages
- Publisher: Headline Review; New Ed edition (5 Jun 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747267146
- ISBN-13: 978-0747267140
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 5.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 205,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Publishers Weekly
‘A sweeping grandeur-touched novel with superb characterisations'
Washington Post
‘Reay Tannahill is a fine storyteller with a beautiful command of English…and an appreciation of the Highlands that is downright poetic'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Brilliant to see this back in print! I've lent my copy (copies!) to at least half a dozen friends in the past and never got them back. A Dark and Distant Shore is a beautifully written and truly riveting read. Although it covers the whole of the 19th century and is full of historical detail so smoothly incorporated that you feel you're actually living in the time, it's the story and characters that matter most - and both of them are great. The heroine, Vilia Cameron, has to leave her home as a child - the wonderfully romantic island castle of Kinveil in the Highlands - and devotes the rest of her life to getting it back. A pretty basic storyline, you might think, but, oh boy, what a saga lies in between. I've always found with other family sagas that the main character tends to fade away somewhere in the middle of the book, leaving you to come to terms with a whole new and less interesting cast. Not here. Vilia is present all the way, and the payoff is a real show-stopper. A Dark and Distant Shore is gripping, ingenious, marvellously written, a real page-turner, and with a touchingly painful love story woven through it. Reay Tannahill's other novel about Kinveil, The World, the Flesh and the Devil' is about the castle four hundred years earlier and every bit as good in a very different way, both exotic and erotic. There aren't many novels that are both classy and unputdownable, but Tannahill's qualify on both counts. I can't recommend them highly enough.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Written in the 'old-fashioned' way - thank Goodness!
A really lengthy, unputdownable treat. Tannahill's descriptions of the Highlands of Scotland are very well drawn and extremely evocative for anyone who has ever visited that area. The peace, wild beauty, stark terrain and weather are all brought to pulsating life in this book.
Her uncompromising picture of an iron foundry at that time is also excellent (what price health & safety then, eh?) reminiscent of Dicken's descriptions.
The very convoluted family tree is carefully woven throughout this complicated and fascinating story ( I also like the 'proper' geneaologcal table at the front of the book - this is quite often missing in family sagas, but is, I feel, a very necessary adjunct to the story, where you can look up the various ages, etc. of the characters.)
All in all, I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good old fashioned family saga. Well done Ms. Tannahill.
A really lengthy, unputdownable treat. Tannahill's descriptions of the Highlands of Scotland are very well drawn and extremely evocative for anyone who has ever visited that area. The peace, wild beauty, stark terrain and weather are all brought to pulsating life in this book.
Her uncompromising picture of an iron foundry at that time is also excellent (what price health & safety then, eh?) reminiscent of Dicken's descriptions.
The very convoluted family tree is carefully woven throughout this complicated and fascinating story ( I also like the 'proper' geneaologcal table at the front of the book - this is quite often missing in family sagas, but is, I feel, a very necessary adjunct to the story, where you can look up the various ages, etc. of the characters.)
All in all, I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good old fashioned family saga. Well done Ms. Tannahill.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book started off really good and the story Vilia Cameron was interesting but too much. This woman gave up a possible happy and loving life for a castle. And the story just kept going on and on from 7 years old to 84 years and all the children, grandchildern and all the people who died.... I couldn't wait to finished with it.
Plus the quality of the book itself was aweful, it literally fell apart after about page 200.
Plus the quality of the book itself was aweful, it literally fell apart after about page 200.
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