The Song Catcher

Set in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee - Appalachian country - this is a magical fusion of ballads, folk myth and local tragedy, woven together with evocative portraits of people and places. In 1751 nine-year-old Malcolm McCourry unwillingly leaves Islay, a small island off the west coast of Scotland where he has spent all his short life - he is snatched from the beach by the marauding crew of a small brig, to be cheap labour. For almost a decade he sails the world, growing strong and confident as he climbs the ladder of promotion. But when he finds himself ashore in America, with solid ground beneath his feet, his ambitions change - and his luck, for a chance-met benefactor offers him an apprenticeship, and turns the sailor into a lawyer. But Malcolm is not done with travelling. Finding the law too prosaic, and leaving behind his equally prosaic marriage (to his benefactor's daughter) and growing family, he strikes out for the mountains; and here at last he finds what he is looking for, on the borders of North Carolina and Tennessee, with a second (unlawful) family... and many descendants. Some of the boys learn the horrors of war in both America and Europe; and many years later one of the girls, Lark McCourry, hears the siren song of the old ballads and becomes a celebrity folk-singer and 'songcatcher', in search of her remote ancestor's long-lost ballad The Rowan Stave. This is a wideranging story of love and family, set in a wild and beautiful land and held together by an old song, passed down through generation after generation. (Kirkus UK)