"One of the joys of reading is coming across a book in which language is perfectly wedded to story. These Granite Islands is a marvelous first novel, confronting with humor, bravery and pathos the manner in which we construct or destroy our various loves." Colum McCann, author of "Let The Great World Spin" Isobel - wife, mother, hatmaker - lies on her deathbed, recalling the fateful summer of 1936, when a passionate and dangerous love affair tests her loyalty and challenges her sense of propriety, dissolving in a haunting tragedy. A gripping tale of friendship, a portrait of a marriage and a meditation on the tragedy of loss. A page-turning literary debut.