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The Unrecovered: A richly atmospheric tale of madness, war and all-encompassing obsession set in Scotland
320 pages, Paperback
Published October 2, 2025
3 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
About the author
Richard Strachan
42 books25 followersRichard Strachan lives in Edinburgh, UK. He has had stories published in magazines like Interzone, The Lonely Crowd, Gutter and New Writing Scotland, and writes for Games Workshop's Black Library imprint.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 4, 2026
Jacob Beresford inherits a gloomy coastal fortress called Gallondean and returns there after his father’s death. Nearby, volunteer nurse Esther Worrell tends wounded soldiers in a requisitioned manor as World War I drags toward its end. As unsettling details from the castle’s past emerge, their stories begin to overlap with eerie legends and buried horrors that won’t stay hidden.
Let me start by saying this is awell-written book — it's atmospheric, richly descriptive, and genuinely evokes the foggy Scottish setting and the weight of war and history pressing down on the characters. There’s no denying Strachan has a strong command of language and scene.
However, I found it really hard to read. I struggled to stay focused on the narrative more often than not, and the pacing felt slow to the point of dragging at times. There were long stretches where I was aware of the writing rather than the story, and for me that made it difficult to stay fully engaged. I just had feelings of the momentum slip or the blend of multiple threads and timelines become unwieldy.
There are flashes of beauty and genuine craft here — moments where the atmosphere is eerie and evocative, and the historical backdrop is intriguing — but overall it never quite pulled me in the way I’d hoped. A book can be well written yet still feel hard to connect with, and for me this was one of those cases.
Well written and atmospheric, but I struggled to stay immersed in the story. Sorry — just didn’t work for me in the end.
Let me start by saying this is awell-written book — it's atmospheric, richly descriptive, and genuinely evokes the foggy Scottish setting and the weight of war and history pressing down on the characters. There’s no denying Strachan has a strong command of language and scene.
However, I found it really hard to read. I struggled to stay focused on the narrative more often than not, and the pacing felt slow to the point of dragging at times. There were long stretches where I was aware of the writing rather than the story, and for me that made it difficult to stay fully engaged. I just had feelings of the momentum slip or the blend of multiple threads and timelines become unwieldy.
There are flashes of beauty and genuine craft here — moments where the atmosphere is eerie and evocative, and the historical backdrop is intriguing — but overall it never quite pulled me in the way I’d hoped. A book can be well written yet still feel hard to connect with, and for me this was one of those cases.
Well written and atmospheric, but I struggled to stay immersed in the story. Sorry — just didn’t work for me in the end.
Displaying 1 of 1 review