Publisher's Synopsis
"Ambitious first novel ... meticulously crafted" (Times Literary Supplement). Harkcliffe Hall has stood for centuries at the edge of salt marshes alongside a river estuary. Inside it a widowed, childless woman clings to the name and traditions of the family she married into. She is visited periodically by her brother, a heavy drinker who one evening is driven home from the village pub in an alcoholic stupor by young Gideon Bradshaw, working as a part-time waiter while studying for an uncertain future. Gideon's life changes course as he enters the world of the Harkcliffe estate, finds himself drawn into its historic past and learns of its association with the local salt mines, once the most productive site in Britain. Now, with no heir, the dynasty seems doomed to die out - but Gideon stumbles across secrets that reveal a desperate struggle to avoid the inevitable, while the threat of a catastrophic fate hangs over the Hall.
