Meg of the Heather

The novel opens on a wild Scottish heath during a savage storm. Young Meg takes shelter in the bracken, finding brief solace in the chaos of wind and rain, when she is discovered by Jem - her friend, her confidant, the one person who might understand. But his arrival brings more than rescue from the elements. He tells her what she's always suspected but never could prove: she is not their biological daughter. The aunt and uncle who raised her, who clipped her wings and kept her small, are not her blood. In that moment, Meg's world cracks open. What follows is her fierce, trembling journey toward autonomy - through the heather and moors of Scotland, through doubt and longing, toward a life she must claim for herself rather than have handed to her. Garratt writes with elemental precision about internal weather, the storms that rage inside us before we can step into the world. This is a novel for anyone who has ever wondered who they might become if they finally stopped performing someone else's idea of who they should be.