News of the Dead by James Robertson

 There are some books that seem to have more to tell than just the story, and this is certainly one of them.  It's set in a remote part of highland Scotland, and there are three stories about the inhabitants of Glen Conach, separated by centuries, but happily running concurrently in the book.

The land is known as Glen Conach after a religious man who lived in a cave on the hillside, and had been known to perform miracles.  The legends associated with Conach were passed down verbally for many years, but there was also a written account of his life held in the library of the local Laird who lived in the middle of the nineteenth century.  At that same time, a young man called Mr Gibb wrote to the Laird to ask if he could come and make a transcript and a translation of the document, which was written in Latin, and he was invited to stay for a summer to complete his work.

Jumping up to the present time, the highland scenery is much the same, and the older villagers can still recount the legends of Conach that have always been told in the glen.  Conach had largely been forgotten by historians until Mr Gibb's diary was discovered pushed down into an old commode heading to be put on a fire.  The villagers recognised it as something that may be important and before long a historian comes to talk to Maga who is the oldest inhabitant of the glen and so her life is woven in and out of the lives of Conach and Mr Gibb.

I said at the start that this book is more than just the story, and there were times when religion, death and the possible presence of ghosts are discussed by the characters when I found myself pausing for thought as it stirred my own beliefs.  After I finished the book I took a photograph of the very last paragraph as it had quite a profound impact on me.  It said:

'You may know this or you may not.  You may want to know it or you may not.  Either way it will not be in your control.  But if you are in your place when death comes calling, so you don't even have to get up and open the door, then you are blessed indeed, whatever else has befallen you in the days and years that went before.'

That was written by Maga to a young neighbour she has befriended and she is aware that she is coming to the end of her life but she knows she has been living in the place that has been right for her and become part of the glen.  Living there has been her blessing and she can ask no more.