On the northern edge of Scotland there is a tiny island community and further away still is a smaller island with a single imposing house on it. At the title suggests, that private island house is separated from everything for several hours a day when the tide flows in. It truly feels like the furthest, most remote corner of the world. The story alternates between the married couple Theo & Beatrice who lived there in 1910 and their distant relative Hetty who inherits the house in 2010. Hetty’s efforts to convert the house into a hotel are derailed when renovators discover a skeleton beneath the house’s foundation and she is consumed by the need to learn everything she can about the house and the community surrounding it.

Throughout the novel I had to remind myself that the titular Muirlan House is NOT a medieval era stone castle, it was built by a grandfather’s grandfather and was only possible because the original owner evicted the people living on the land and demolished their homes. The descendants of those villagers live in a state of understandable resentment at being dispossessed. They don’t have jobs or land to their names and as Hetty takes on her new unintended role of landlord I got the impression that Maine’s suggestion is that no one should rule over land that someone else lives on. #LandlordsAreLeeches

The novel has an exciting start and a satisfying conclusion but, I have to admit, there was a pretty significant lull in the middle. The book has some compelling unique characters and lots of interesting parallels between their attitudes 100 years apart. But, without the need to know whose body was found, I may have given up on the book before reaching the end.