Seren Doughty is an author who has written nothing in the five years since her daughter’s murder. So when her former editor approaches her agent with the idea for a ghost story, Seren immediately thinks of the abandoned island of Finish in the Outer Hebrides and seizes the opportunity to commit herself to a new project. Leaving her old life far behind, she immerses herself in island life. The only building on the island – a small stone bothy – becomes home as she finally picks up her pen and attempts to write. Except Finish is not abandoned. She soon discovers the island is alive with strange noises and echoes of a bloody massacre, events more traumatic than any fiction she might construct. Her emerging manuscript becomes dominated by the figure of the island midwife, Granny Chulainn, whose attempts to save the island’s children have gone unrecorded for many centuries. That is, until Seren’s arrival.