The Spirit of Scatarie

Description

A stunning new work of historical fiction from the bestselling author of The Spoon Stealer, set on Nova Scotia’s remote Scatarie Island, following three friends whose lives are inextricably bound, and the spirit who guides them.

You might be startled that this tale will be told to you by a ghost. I prefer the word spirit but it’s all the same. The truth is, I have as much right to tell this story as anyone. Scatarie Island belongs to the living and the dead

Christmas Day, 1922: three babies are born on Scatarie Island, off the coast of Cape Breton. Although born to different parents, Hardy, Sam, and Mary Alice grow up together in their wild homeplace, exploring the rocky coastline, picking bakeapples, and scavenging treasures from the countless ships that have wrecked there over the centuries.

But change is lapping at the shores of this isolated island, the Second World War the biggest change of all. One friend leaves to fight, one tends the light, and one struggles to understand how a place where wealth is measured in fish and family can possibly survive this outmigration.

Only one of them knows about Cara. A girl who wrecked on the island’s shores a hundred years earlier, emigrating from Ireland. A girl who fell in love with the windswept grasses and salt-scrubbed air and tight community of Scatarie, and remains as a spirit. A girl who keeps watch, everywhere from the rugged island to the blood-soaked beaches of France?nudging the three friends towards their destinies.

Part ghost story, part romance, part history, and a stirring tribute to young soldiers and their brave war brides, The Spirit of Scatarie is an epic tale with whispering island winds at its heart.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Lesley Crewe
Published: 09/16/2025
Publisher: Vagrant Press
ISBN: 9781774714560
Pages: 392
Weight: 1.03lbs
Size: 1.06″ H x 6.03″ L x 9.25″ W

About the Author
Crewe, Lesley: –

Lesley Crewe is the Globe and Mail–bestselling author of fourteen novels, including the national bestseller Death & Other Inconveniences, Nosy Parker and Recipe for a Good Life, which were named to Indigo’s Top 100 Books of 2022 and 2023 respectively, The Spoon Stealer, longlisted for Canada Reads 2022, Beholden, Mary, Mary, Amazing Grace, Kin, and Relative Happiness, which was adapted into an award-winning feature film. She has also published two collections of essays, the Leacock–longlisted Are You Kidding Me?! and I Kid You Not! Lesley lives in Homeville, Nova Scotia. Visit her at lesleycrewe.com.