The Windhover

by Lorna Elcock

Perthshire. 1957.

The Camerons arrive from a tenement in Glasgow to run a remote Scottish youth hostel, unaware they are setting in motion a terrible chain of events that will reverberate through the decades.

Siblings Alison and Ewan delight in swapping grey city life for the mountains and lochs surrounding Rannoch. Only their elder sister Moira understands their granny’s dark looks and their mother’s increasingly poor health. As the summer progresses and Mr Cameron’s incendiary secrets begin to surface, the family’s attempts to create a new life unravel – and then the adults make an unthinkable decision, one that wrenches the Camerons apart.

It’s 1982.

Ewan is long estranged from his family. Now a celebrated artist working in burgeoning London, he is a world away from Rannoch. So why do his paintings return to the rugged landscapes and soaring birds of his youth? Four hundred miles north of him, in grey and rainy Cumbernauld, Moira knows that it is down to her to remedy the effects of their disastrous childhood before it is too late.

The Windhover is an emotionally devastating story of lost children and misguided adults, tracing the shockwaves of lies and loss within one family and exploring whether redemption is truly possible when the betrayal runs so deep.

Genres: Fiction, Scotland

Unknown Binding

Published July 23, 2026

Reviews

[Rue Baldry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Windhover is a beautifully structured novel which never loses its way. I was fully immersed in the locations and family dynamics. The characters are so well drawn that I feel like I met them. The children’s thoughts are expressed in ways which are exactly right for their ages and their very different personalities. I was completely hooked and needing to know everything right up until the very satisfying end.

The descriptions of the loch-side hostel are particularly good. The locations is really solidly built and so are the the sensations of being there - cold, stony, remote and bleakly beautiful. The emotions and relationships are brought to life just as well. There’s a yearning for emotional connections which runs through both timelines, while at the same time it is completely understandable that all the characters are also putting up barriers between themselves and everyone else. My heart broke for every one of them at one point or another.

Absolutely wonderful! Such good prose. I loved this book so much.

[Alex Hutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved!! and a debut?! wow! characters felt very real. gorgeous and brooding i really felt the tension mounting and despite being set in 1957 it felt strangely nostalgic? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 forever etc etc

[Karen L · Rating 5 out of 5]

when you cant put a book down and cry at the end its the sign of a wonderful book.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant, literary debut novel from Lorna Elcock was a joy to read. The author's glorious, lyrical prose held me captivated from the beginning, demanding that I take time to savour it, frequently re-reading particular passages because they so perfectly captured a particular interaction between the characters, or because they so powerfully evoked the loch-side landscape of the hostel. Each of the characters was convincingly portrayed, as were the dynamics of their interactions and the credibility of their behaviour in both timelines. There were so many moments when I was reading that I felt such a sense of sadness and despair that I almost forgot to breathe, fearful of what was in store for the characters. I found that the dual timeline was both very effective and well handled because it added layers to the storytelling which somehow added to the developing sense of tension and menace. A wonderful, unforgettable read ... I just wish I could give it more than a 5* rating!

[Sheena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atmospheric and lyrical. This intense book took me longer to read than perhaps it's length would suggest because my brain was having to try to catch up with the author's at times. It really took a deep dive into familial relationships and the after effects of loss and trauma.

[emily s · Rating 4 out of 5]

O u c h

[Tono · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

Beau livre avec une jolie prose qui m’a permis de ramener un peu des highlands avec moi en rentrant de vacances en Écosse ; émouvant de par son thème (le deuil, la trahison…) j’ai adoré le développement des personnages et le mouvement de va et viens entre le passé et le présent: l’histoire se révèle jusqu’à la dernière page.

[Len Northfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written, emotionally affecting novel. I’m looking forward to more from this author.

[Fiona Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was brilliant. Dark and broodingly atmospheric, the threat of something, plenty of things it turns out, leaping off the page.

As the tale is told from three different perspectives we hear about each of the characters' annoying traits, only to then hear from them the context that tips our opinion on its head. This way, the siblings all develop into three-dimensional people, equally untrustworthy but somehow I still found myself invested in each of them, hoping they could shake off the roots of the childhoods that grew into the unfellable tree of their future.

The question this book really asks us to examine is whether, despite those futures being worlds apart, underneath the surface they are still battling the same demons and carrying the same scars. I think The Windhover makes a pretty compelling argument that you can never outrun your childhood. Dark.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

[Dave Musson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sad and haunting novel that broods and broods before revealing its secrets in its frantic final few pages.

Far more literary than I usually read, while I know I am not a smart enough reader to appreciate all of the nuance of this one, I still enjoyed it plenty. Beautiful and evocative writing, and a family of complex, flawed people.

Thanks to Dead Ink for the review copy!

[Elena M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many thanks to Netgalley, Dead Ink Books and the author for the arc.

The premise of this book sounded fantastic and I was hoping for a 5 star read. Sadly, this book did not deliver for me. We follow three siblings Moira, Ewan and Alison in different timelines and the various secrets within the family. The writing is absolutely beautiful, in particular the descriptions of the Scottish landscapes. This brings me to my main issue with this book which is that there is not much in terms of plot until around the 80% mark. Additionally, the characters themselves seemed fairly unremarkable in that none had very defined traits. This combination meant that the book therefore fell a bit flat for me. Whilst it was still an engaging read, I would recommend this book to readers that are content with the book focusing on the landscape and surroundings.

[Fatguyreading · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well what can I say about this beautiful novel? What an amazing achievement for a debut.

It's utterly absorbing and thoughtful, with an immediate sense of atmosphere and remoteness in the sprawling Scottish landscape.

Set over two timelines, the 1950's and the 1980's, its raw and heart breaking and certainly deserves to be very widely read.

A true modern classic in the making.

5 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟's from me.

[Natalia Niño de la Corte · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

At times, it felt boring because of how repetitive certain parts were. The writing was beautiful, which made it easier to put up with the same descriptions over and over again. I guess I would have liked more context. There was also too much Miss Buchanan. I get that she’s horrid, but if you’re not going to explore what made her that way beyond the obvious reasons, I don’t need to be reminded dozens of times of how awful she is.

[Liz Moffat · Rating 3.25 out of 5]

There was a sense of menace throughout this book which had me tense while reading it. I knew something was going to happen but it wasn’t revealed until the last chapters. The setting was beautiful and I imagined myself at times in Loch Ossian and others Loch Lochy. I didn’t like any of the characters, though, so was not invested in them to feel any sympathy.

[Russell Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Ivy · Rating 4 out of 5]

And isn't it such a wonderful book? When you capture every character so well through the narrative and don't tell the reader a thing and only show? Isn't it just?

[Anna Grady · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

Lots to like about this in terms of plot and capturing the atmosphere of a soggy Scottish Youth Hostel in the 50s but I found myself jumping over some of the descriptive prose !