Festival of Fire

By Jessi Hammond

Withdrawn and resentful after her mother's death, Erica sneaks away during Kinbrae's annual Fire Festival to the quiet and solitude of the next valley over, where the original village of Kinbrae stood before a landslide destroyed it one thousand years ago.

Solveig spins and weaves wool to keep herself and her mother alive after her father is presumed drowned at sea. Unable to take part in Kinbrae's Fire Festival because she is a girl, she sneaks away to the headland between her valley and the next to watch it.

Two girls from the opposite ends of time, drawn together by a single cataclysmic event…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jessi Hammond
• Release date: Sep 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201157258

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About this book

Withdrawn and resentful after her mother’s death, Erica sneaks away during Kinbrae’s annual Fire Festival to the quiet and solitude of the next valley over, where the original village of Kinbrae stood before a landslide destroyed it one thousand years ago.

Solveig spins and weaves wool to keep herself and her mother alive after her father is presumed drowned at sea. Unable to take part in Kinbrae’s Fire Festival because she is a girl, she sneaks away to the headland between her valley and the next to watch it.

Two girls from the opposite ends of time, drawn together by a single cataclysmic event…

Festival of Fire

One

Erica reached the narrow crest of the ridge, her feet in their thick boots sliding on tussocky grass. The wind blowing in off the North Sea was even colder here, numbing her cheeks, and the setting sun had no warmth to it at all. She pulled the sheepskin-lined hood of her new parka tighter around her ears. She hated the cold. Hated the wind. Hated the isolated, grey-green, almost-treeless countryside.

Hated being here in Kinbrae in northern Scotland in the depths of winter without Mum and with a Gran she’d never met until two months ago.

At least she couldn’t see Kinbrae from here. The small village was in the valley behind her, nestled a little way up from the rocky beach. The valley ahead was narrow and empty of humans. Like Kinbrae’s valley, it descended in huge steep uneven plateaus like giant steps down to where the waves smashed on to a rocky shore. But unlike Kinbrae’s valley, most of the steps here were mounded, the dirt and grass piled unevenly across them. The hill at the far end of the valley was jagged and uneven, and looked as if a giant had taken a huge bite out of it. Gran had said that was where the hillside had broken away almost a thousand years before and thundered down the valley