West's Carys Davies for Clear

Carys Davies is the author of two novels, The Mission House and West which won the Wales Book of the Year Fiction award and was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. Her short stories have been regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

She joins us at the bookshop for her new novel Clear, a wondrous tale of bonds forged when two men are pitted against each other on a remote island during the Highland Clearances, from the prize-winning author of West.

1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs.

The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger's intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John's wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission. Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Davies's intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us.

Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.

A compact, taut and brilliant novel with an ingenious premise. The book is about belonging, a dying language, secrets, and a pistol in a box. I loved every page ~ Anthony Doerr

This intriguing and inventive story escorts the reader to an unexpectedly joyous ending that hints at our contemporary interest in new ideas of what a family might be. The writing style is one of clarity and reserved sensibility punctuated with an end-game needle jab. Not to be missed ~ Annie Proulx

A poignant, profound depiction of both solitude and connection. Carys Davies has written a masterful, discreetly sublime book ~ Hernan Diaz