The Curiosity Cabinet by Catherine Czerkawska

‘The island reminds her of those magic painting books. The shop here used to sell them. You would dip your brush in water and pale, clear colours would emerge from the page, as this green and blue landscape is emerging from the mist.’

‘She saw before her a small but strongly built man, in his thirties perhaps, wearing highland dress, bare legs showing beneath the big blue plaid. He reminded her of the highlanders she had seen on the streets of Edinburgh where sometimes, dressed in their outlandish clothes, they were perceived as crude figures of fun and sometimes, bristling with weaponry and with the drink taken, as dangerous incomers. Manus was no figure of fun although she could see that he might be dangerous, a better friend than an enemy, perhaps.’

When Alys revisits the beautiful Hebridean island of Garve after an absence of twenty five years, she is captivated by the embroidered casket on display in her hotel. She discovers that it belongs to Donal, her childhood playmate, and soon they resume their old friendship. Interwoven with the story of their growing love, is the darker tale of Henrietta Dalrymple, kidnapped by the formidable Manus McNeill and held on Garve against her will. With three hundred years separating them, the women are linked by the cabinet and its contents, by the tug of motherhood and by the magic of the island itself. But Garve has its secrets, past and present. Donal must learn to trust Alys enough to confide in her and, like Henrietta before her, Alys must earn the right to belong.

Author Bio: From Catherine's website: "I write novels, short stories, non-fiction and award winning stage plays.

Right now, I'm concentrating on novels more than anything else. I love telling stories and like all writers, I tend to focus on the work I've fallen in love with at the time. I've been well published and produced in the conventional way, but I'm embracing the new technology, and in future you'll find most of my work, old and new, in eBook form. Just follow the links.

I live in a 200 year old cottage in beautiful, rainy, rural Scotland with my artist husband, Alan Lees. Our son lives in Dundee and designs video games. I'm a historian and folklorist as well as a writer, but I also collect and deal in antique textiles which often seem to find their way into my fiction.

I write because there's nothing else I do that gives me so much pleasure. I try to write the kind of books and stories I love to read. I hope you'll enjoy them too.”

Follow her on Twitter!

Kindle:  $3.99