What Lies Beneath

Written by Elspeth Sandys

Narrated by Elspeth Sandys

WRITER ELSPETH SANDYS was born during the Second World War, the result of a brief encounter between two people who would never meet again. The first nine months of her life were spent in the Truby King Karitane Hospital in Dunedin, where she was known as Frances Hilton James. With her adoption, a new birth certificate was issued and she became Elspeth Sandilands Somerville. Tom and Alice Somerville lived with their son John in Dunedin’s Andersons Bay. While Elspeth was happy among the ebullient and welcoming Somerville clan, she had a difficult relationship with her adoptive mother, who was frequently hospitalised with mental health problems. Elspeth’s search for her birth parents did not begin until much later in her adult life. What she discovered after an exhaustive search provided answers that were both disturbing and, ultimately, rewarding. What Lies Beneath is a searing, amusing, and never less than gripping tale of a difficult life, beautifully told.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Otago University Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781988531830

Elspeth Sandys

Elspeth Sandys writes predominantly historical fiction and her long experience as a stage and radio playwright, an author of adaptations for the BBC, and an actor inform the craft of her dialogue. She has published short stories as well as long fiction and she won a UK award for her novel River Lines. Her memoir, What Lies Beneath, was published by Otago University Press in 2014.