Sapphic gothic thriller THE SALVAGE with Anbara Salam

The nights are fair drawing in.... so what better time to launch a sapphic gothic thriller that the end of November? We are so excited to welcome Anbara Salam back to the bookshop. We adored her Edinburgh-set novel Hayardous Spirits, and she is back now with another historical offering set in Scotland...

It is 1962, and Marta Khoury, a trail-blazing marine archaeologist, has travelled to Cairnroch, a small island off the east coast of Scotland. An Arctic shipwreck containing the remains of a famous Victorian explorer has been towed back to the island at the behest of his wealthy descendants. Marta's job is to retrieve valuable artefacts from the vessel, deep beneath the freezing Scottish waters. But on her first dive, she becomes convinced she has seen a ghostly figure lurking in the wreckage. When Marta discovers objects from the vessel have inexplicably disappeared, she must work to uncover their whereabouts before her boss - who is also her ex-husband - discovers their absence. As a series of unsettling and strange occurrences begins to unfold, Marta's work trip turns into a long winter as the worst snowstorms of the century sweep in and trap the islanders, and their ghosts, in an icy wilderness.

About our speaker:

Anbara Salam is a Scottish-Palestinian author, her novel HAZARDOUS SPIRITS was shortlisted for fiction book of the year for the 2024 Saltire Society Scottish National Book Awards. THE SALVAGE (Tin House / Baskerville) is her fourth novel.