The road from Belhaven: a novel

Margot Livesey

"From the New York Times best-selling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy, a novel about a young woman whose gift of second sight complicates her coming of age in late 19th century Scotland Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven farm, Lizzie Craig discovers at a young age that she can see into the future. Her gift of sight is selective-she doesn't, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family on her beloved farm. But she does see "pictures" that foretell various incidents and accidents and begins to realize a painful truth: she may glimpse the future, but she can seldom change it. Nor can Lizzie change the feelings that come when a young man named Louis, visiting Belhaven for the harvest, begins to court her. Why have the adults around her not revealed that the touch of a hand can change everything? After following Louis to Glasgow, though, she learns the limits of his devotion, and when faced with a seemingly impossible choice, she makes what turns out to be a terrible mistake. But while Lizzie can't change the past, her second sight may allow her a second chance. Luminous and transporting, The Road from Belhaven once again displays "the marvelous control of a writer who conjures equally well the tangible, sensory world . . . and the mysteries, stranger and wilder, that flicker at the border of that world." (The Boston Globe)

The road from Belhaven: a novel

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