Author(s): Eliza Henry-Jones

Aust Fiction

Grief-stricken and on the verge of a breakdown, Luda Managan and her two teenaged children try to make a home for themselves on a collection of harsh and haunted Scottish islands.    Luda, a photographer, is mesmerised by the extraordinary magic of the islands and soon finds herself condemned by the local community after publishing images documenting the death of a local child. Alienated, Luda turns her attention to the records from the 17th century island witch-hunts and the fragmented life stories of the executed women. Min, restless and strong, tries to fill up the space in their family left by her father. She soon finds comfort in the depths of icy North Sea and in an unlikely friendship with the elderly and irreverent local “witch”. The only thing that beautiful and gifted Darcy cares about is getting marks high enough for entry into university – one very, very far away from his mother.  Until he meets the wild foundling, Theo.    When a tragic accident unleashes ghosts and the echoes of long-ago violence and betrayal into their lives, the Managans are forced to confront the ways that history both hinders us and sets us free.    Drawing on records of the witch trials and folk tales of the northern isles, Salt and Skin is full of tenderness, magic and yearning. It’s a meditation on the absence of women’s voices and stories in history, and the unexpected ways that sites of long-ago trauma continue to haunt the living.

MATILDA BOOKSHOP REVIEW

Luda has only just moved her kids, Min and Darcy, to a small Scottish island when her work as a photographer sees the community turn against her. This small town with a troubled past is home to meddling council members, women with secret pasts, families torn by grief, and a strange foundling boy who Min and Darcy find themselves drawn to. The contrast of the drought-stricken lands they left behind and the sea-soaked Scottish setting is incredible, as is the central question of what we owe to one another through art and trauma. Family history and community history clash and fracture in this witchy, briny, tale. Marina