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Elisabeth Gifford
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The Sea House: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Elisabeth Gifford (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 out of 5 stars 4,632 ratings

In 1860, Alexander Ferguson, a newly ordained vicar and amateur evolutionary scientist, takes up his new parish, a poor, isolated patch on the remote Scottish island of Harris. He hopes to uncover the truth behind the legend of the selkies—mermaids or seal people who have been sighted off the north of Scotland for centuries. He has a more personal motive, too; family legend states that Alexander is descended from seal men. As he struggles to be the good pastor he was called to be, his maid Moira faces the terrible eviction of her family by Lord Marstone, whose family owns the island. Their time on the island will irrevocably change the course of both their lives, but the white house on the edge of the dunes keeps its silence long after they are gone.
It will be more than a century before the Sea House reluctantly gives up its secrets. Ruth and Michael buy the grand but dilapidated building and begin to turn it into a home for the family they hope to have. Their dreams are marred by a shocking discovery. The tiny bones of a baby are buried beneath the house; the child's fragile legs are fused together—a mermaid child. Who buried the bones? And why? To heal her own demons, Ruth feels she must discover the secrets of her new home—but the answers to her questions may lie in her own traumatic past. The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford is a sweeping tale of hope and redemption and a study of how we heal ourselves by discovering our histories.

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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    St. Martin's Press
  4. Publication date
    April 15, 2014
  5. File size
    3.0 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Set in a house on the windswept coast of the Outer Hebrides, this haunting tale effortlessly bridges a gap of more than a century. Adeptly interweaving two tales involving residents of the titular house, Gifford sets up an absorbing mystery revolving around local lore and myths about mermaids, selkies, and sealmen. In 1860, novice vicar Alexander Ferguson takes up his new post as parish priest and moves into the Sea House. Fast forward 130 years and newlyweds Ruth and Michael purchase the dilapidated house and begin renovating it. After they unearth the bones of an infant whose legs and feet are fused together, Ruth realizes she must discover what really happened in order to face and destroy her own very personal demons. Stretching seamlessly back and forth through time, layers upon layers of secrets are slowly and effectively peeled away in this evocative debut. --Margaret Flanagan

Review

“A gripping journey into the past: a stunning exploration of the mysteries that define individuals and communities. Liz Gifford is a writer with a talent for storytelling.” ―Emma Chapman, author of How To Be A Good Wife

“Hints of magic abound in Gifford's haunting fiction debut…Gifford has an ability to bring depth to her characters, whether they live in the 19th century or the 20th, and this helps hold together her sweeping tale.” ―Publishers Weekly

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00FOA4ZGG
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press (April 15, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 15, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3.0 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 out of 5 stars 4,632 ratings

About the author

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Elisabeth Gifford

Elisabeth Gifford

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Elisabeth Gifford studied French literature and world religions at Leeds University. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College. She is married with three adult children and lives in Kingston upon Thames.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
4,632 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book's story well-crafted, with one review highlighting its multiple perspectives and suspenseful plot. They praise its readability, with one customer noting they couldn't put it down.

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7 customers mention "Story quality"7 positive0 negative

Customers praise the story's craftsmanship, with one noting how the author skillfully tells it from different perspectives, while another highlights its suspenseful plot with twists and turns.

"This is a wonderfully crafted story, beautifully written and a wonderful escape to another world and time." Read more

"A beautiful, well-written story with just enough twists and turns to create suspense and keep the reader guessing how it'll all come together." Read more

"...Real lives and almost fantasy story. Highly recommended!" Read more

"I loved this story! The author did a wonderful job of telling the story from different perspectives and different periods of time in history...." Read more

6 customers mention "Readability"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well written and fabulous to read, with one mentioning they couldn't stop reading it.

"This is a wonderfully crafted story, beautifully written and a wonderful escape to another world and time." Read more

"What a delightfull book!..." Read more

"Well written and atmospheric! Wonderful description of location. Great read and didn't want the story to end!..." Read more

"I loved this book - one of my favorites ever! I learned so much about Scotland and the crofters. This is one book I will read many times." Read more

Do selkies really exist in Scotland?
3 out of 5 stars
Do selkies really exist in Scotland?
On the shores of Scotland is a sea house where two tales unravel. Ruth, who is renovating the house, and hiding from her past and found another: mermaid bones buried beneath the floorboards. Ruth’s mother drowned when her daughter was very young, leaving her orphaned. In an attempt to find a piece of her family history, and perhaps an answer to the loss of her mother, Ruth moves back to Scotland, the place her mother was from yet had never told her daughter any details about, only more selkie legends. Over a hundred years before her, the Reverend Alexander Ferguson inhabited the house. A man obsessed with local tales of mermaids and selkies, he was part of a great tragedy the residents still remember. His assistant, a native named Miriam, taught him her family’s legends while he searched for the answer to the question, “Do selkies really exist?” For a themed recipe of Cherry Oat Cupcakes with Cherry Jam Whisky Frosting, as well as similar book recommendations and discussion questions, visit:[...]
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Joan K.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book
    Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    This is a wonderfully crafted story, beautifully written and a wonderful escape to another world and time.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Stephanie White
    4.0 out of 5 stars A sweet love story
    Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Who doesn't love a little sentimental love story now and then? Where the shy underdog gets the man of her dreams? Where the dreamer is finally vindicated and celebrated...where the orphan finds belonging...just a lot of happiness in this story...what's not to love about that?
    2 people found this helpful
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  • janet wolfe
    3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2014
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    It was ok. However it was interesting learning about the seal people.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Sea House
    Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    A beautiful, well-written story with just enough twists and turns to create suspense and keep the reader guessing how it'll all come together.
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  • Benny C. Long
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2017
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    Enjoyed
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  • DUTCH
    2.0 out of 5 stars Bad book
    Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2014
    This book was a wast of money. Tough to get into and once into it was no better. Way too descriptive and filled with Scotish old words and tales that were hard to follow. Add to that the fact that the book dealt mainly with finding proof of mermaids no less. Ridiculous!!! I thought the book would be about the old dwelling the married couple bought and fixed up to be an inn and the people who came to the inn....NOT. The married couple Michael and Ruth were boring and depressing people plus the book vasilated between centuries which normally is ok but in this case was hard to follow given the gist of the book. Way too much about mermaid people who could take their skins off and become a human and then at will put the skins back on and swim off into the sea. How did this book get published. Hogwash is what it was.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Kjell Lillerud
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful reading, enjoy!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    What a delightfull book! The reader can follow two stories taking place in Scotland, one from around 1860's and the new one from our days and the people have joint connections.
    Real lives and almost fantasy story. Highly recommended!
    One person found this helpful
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  • Pirate2240
    4.0 out of 5 stars A sweeping tale of hope and redemption and a study of how we heal ourselves by discovering our histories!
    Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2014
    Sometimes in searching for the truth behind the legends we have read about we find more than we bargained for. In the debut novel, The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford, the reader is tossed between the past and the present surrounding those who have made the Sea House, their home. For Ruth and Michael a newly married couple just starting their new lives together, they dream of restoring this old home into a Bed and Breakfast nestled high above the ever present crashing Scottish sea. While they are in the process of removing the old floorboard, they discover a secret that has been buried beneath the house for more than a century. A small wooden box that bears the skeletal remains of what appears to be a child with fused together legs that leads Michael and Ruth to believe they have discovered what could be a mermaid child.

    The image and knowledge lodge into Ruth's mind to uncover just who this child was and why was it buried beneath the Sea House. What stories are waiting to be told. It seems that as Ruth is going through the research on the child, she finds herself drawn very much into the parallel life of the child and her own missing family. The only knowledge Ruth has of her own family, is that her mother drowned one night leaving her to spend her childhood years being shuttled from foster home to foster home. Never knowing who her father was, Ruth can identify with the child she has discovered beneath her home. Perhaps in a way, if she can uncover who this child is, she can put to rest the haunting of her own past of not knowing where she came from as well.

    What she learns takes her back to 1860 where she learns the Sea House belonged to Reverend Alexander Ferguson, the vicar for the small town in the Hebrides Islands of Scotland. The Reverend believed in the legends of sea people called Selkies, that his family originated from but there is no physical proof that has been discovered to prove the stories as true or simply the legends of the past. So he begins his own search looking for proof among the lives of the people who live among the island. He finds himself faced with his own personal dilemmas when his faithful maid, Moira faces the eviction of her own family under the land they live on owned by Lord Marstone. Since they are unable to make a living on what they can farm there because of the poor soil and harsh terrain, they are forced to buy food from Marstone. When he comes calling upon their payment of debts and they have no way to pay, he forces them to flee aboard a ship and takes what meager possessions of theirs as payment and burns the homes to the ground.

    I received The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford compliments of St. Martin's Press and Litfuse Publicity as a free copy for my honest review. I did not recieve any monetary compensation for a favorable review and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I have to applaud Ms. Gifford on her first novel. This is truly the stuff you would expect to find when you read an exceptional novel. The writing style reflects both the language and dialog of the past and present in Scotland so it feels authentic. The setting and rich details of both the historic past and contemporary present are so well written, you can feel the salt air on your face, and hear the crashing waves on the rocks below the Sea House. It truly draws the reader in for something unexpected much like searching for mermaid legends and instead you find the truth you've been searching for all along.

    The characters are well written and I would have liked to have known a bit more about the history behind Lord Marstone a bit more than I got. Readers should be warned that there is some profanity in this one, but these are based on cultural differences between the literature in the US versus that of the UK as I've been told. It doesn't distract from the story in any way. This was truly had me captivated much like Ruth's character as she began to unravel the smallest details bit by bit. I rate this one a 4 out of 5 stars and look forward to more novels from her in the future.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Sasa
    5.0 out of 5 stars Lovers of Scotland and folklore should enjoy this book
    Reviewed in Canada on September 3, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Slightly spookie and a very enjoyable read about an area of Scotland I love.
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  • Susanne Bodenstein
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
    Reviewed in Germany on February 27, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Set in the Hebrides, a story of PTSD, a Victorian novel, a story of the ‘island clearances’, of the Hebredian peasantry driven into miserable exile, and an exploration of the Gaelic myths of the sea people, all wrapped in one
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  • J C Greenway
    5.0 out of 5 stars A mystery that links two stories and two people across decades
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 29, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    In the modern story, Ruth and her husband Michael have purchased ‘The Sea House,’ a rundown former manse on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. Early in the renovations they find an eerie burial place under the floorboards, which prompts Ruth to explore the history of the house and its former inhabitants. The reader’s mind – like Ruth’s – will run amok with theories as to what has taken place there and it is through her searching that we are introduced to a previous occupant of the manse, the minister Alexander and his staff.

    He himself is on a scientific quest to discover the origins of the ‘Selkie‘ or seal people of local legend, having moved to the remote parish from Edinburgh. Religion and science are in conflict in Alexander’s time, as are the ‘old ways’ and notions of progress, personified in Moira, Alexander’s housemaid, as she begins to learn English in return for teaching him Gaelic and telling him some of the local stories about the Selkies. Alexander’s strength of character will be tested by the arrival of Katriona – his master Lord Marstone’s feisty daughter – and his faith in humanity by the demands his boss will make on the land and its people.

    Secrets of the Sea House is a story of sensations: a touch on Ruth’s hand as she walks through the half-renovated house at night, the effects of sun, sea and sky on the islanders, their language and their ways, which the more recent arrivals can’t quite take in. Alexander’s descriptions of the island will encourage searching for images to confirm that – yes! – it really is that beautiful. It is also a story of how the things we bury do not often stay concealed forever. The traumas of the past must be reckoned with eventually. Ruth and Alexander’s searches for their own family histories are like two currents in the ocean, dancing through and around each other, both enticing and enthralling as they uncover their respective mysteries.

    It is rare to finish a work of fiction with the desire to jump right into every book on the bibliography provided, but this is a captivating tale, which brings often unexamined histories into the light. And while the personal histories resonate, the wider social background does too.
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  • jan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful read
    Reviewed in Spain on February 6, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    What more can I say, the book is a wonderful read. Thoroughly enjoyed it. You are drawn to all the characters, past & present.
    Highly recommended.
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  • Sandy
    5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read
    Reviewed in Australia on May 31, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Elisabeth Gifford is another new writer for me, and I am so pleased that I discovered her, and her amazing story telling.
    This dual timeline is set on the coast of the Outer Hebrides. In the 1990s Ruth and her husband Michael buy an old church manse which yields a buried secret while they are renovating. In the same house in the latter half of the 19th century, the Reverend Alexander Ferguson is researching the legend of the Selkies.
    An incredible story weaving between the two time frames; it had me hooked from beginning to end.
    So well written and researched; I loved it.
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