The Blue Cabin: Living by the Tides on Islandmore [Paperback]

'a magical book'

'an enchanting, funny and touching book . . . about the making of
a fresh start'

'charmingly written . . . a moving account'

From chapter one, Faulkner exhibits a natural storytelling gift and a sureness with words, and also with rhythm, on which his phrases and sentences surf and maintain their momentum ... The book is a heartwarming read, full of perception and gentle wit.

The book is a heartwarming read, full of perception and gentle wit.

'By Christmas we were living to the rhythm of the tides...' In 2002, following the collapse of his business and the loss of a much-loved family home, Mike Faulkner and his artist wife Lynn left Scotland for a cabin on Islandmore, an uninhabited island on Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland. Familiar to Mike as the holiday haven to which his father, the last Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, had gone with his family during the worst years of the Troubles, moving there to live year-round was a different prospect. With no mains electricity, an erratic water supply and access to the mainland only possible by boat, life on Islandmore is one part catastrophe - storms, broken generators, escaping dinghies - to three parts idyll - long walks on the shore, sunsets from Eagle Hill, year-round picnics, visits from friends. The result is a book imbued with sense of place; an honest, often funny, and moving account of one couple and two dogs living the kind of uncomplicated life that so many of us yearn for.

MIKE FAULKNER grew up in Northern Ireland, but spent most of his adult life in Scotland, initially working as a solicitor and subsequently setting up the UK's first Santa Fe/Southwestern furniture-making company. In spite of great initial success, the company collapsed in 2001 and Mike and his wife, Lynn McGregor - a professional artist specialising in semi-abstract landscape - moved to Islandmore. This is Mike's first book.