Book of the Month: The Unrecovered by Richard Strachan

We are trembling with excitement to offer five copies of The Unrecovered by former New Writers Awardee Richard Strachan in our March Book of the Month competition, courtesy of our friends at Raven Books. 

To be in with a chance of winning this evocative, deeply atmospheric and brilliantly engaging historical debut, all you need to do is answer the question at the bottom of the page by midnight on 31 March 2025.

All entrants must reside in the UK and full terms and conditions apply. Check out our competitions page to find more giveaways.

About The Unrecovered by Richard Strachan

The gloomy fortress of Gallondean lies on the Scottish coast. Local legend has it that if the heirs to the house hear the howling of a spectral hound nearby, their death will quickly follow.

The current owner of the house is Jacob Beresford who, up until the unexpected death of his father, had never set foot within its crumbling walls. Jacob, already haunted by his own demons, has no need of more ghosts, but as the First World War staggers through its last terrible months and he uncovers unsettling details of his new home's past, the shadows seem to be growing around him.

Then he meets Esther, a young volunteer nurse serving at nearby Roddinglaw, an elegant country house requisitioned for use as a temporary hospital ward. Esther, widowed in the early months of the war, dreams of being a poet as she assists the men around her, some of whom are struggling to come to terms with permanent, life-changing injuries. But it is one of the soldiers who appears to have only a minor injury, whose life comes to intersect with both Esther and Jacob in horrifying and unexpected ways.

Danger stalks the woods and coast around them, but it soon becomes clear that the gravest threats are within. . .

Interview with the author

How did you first get into writing?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember but I first began to take it seriously, and with the intention of getting published, when I was in my late teens or early twenties. I was an obsessive reader and the idea of moving people with language the same way I had been moved by writers like VS Naipaul, JG Ballard or Martin Amis began to obsess me in the same way. Like most writers, it took me a while to find my own voice and style, but it took me a lot longer to find my own subject matter, although I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve written a number of short stories and had them published in various magazines, but I always wanted to write and publish novels more than anything.

What can readers expect from The Unrecovered?

The Unrecovered is a gothic mystery, set towards the end of the First World War, in and around a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers on the Scottish coast. It follows three main characters (a volunteer nurse and aspiring poet, a wounded serviceman, and a young man recently returned from British India) as they become affected by the sinister local legend of Hound Point. Although the book leans into these gothic trappings, it’s also a story about war trauma, psychology, the nature of the soul and the recrudescence of the buried past. I would hope that it's an exciting and interesting read, but it’s also an attempt to blend the different styles of some of the writers who have influenced me as well, and in that sense, it’s a literary as well as a genre novel. I’d hope that readers of all sorts would get something from it though, whether that’s from the characters and plot or just the style.

What drew you to the real-life legend that inspired this novel?

The legend of Hound Point tells of a knight who left for the Crusades in the Middle Ages, and who abandoned his faithful hunting hound, unwilling to risk its life in battle. When the knight was killed in the Holy Land the hound ran to the point and howled at the exact same moment, before dying of grief. Now, whenever the heir of Barnbougle Castle is about to die, he will hear the spectral howling of that hound and know that his end is near. . .

I live on the northern edge of Edinburgh, right by the coast of the Firth of Forth, and I’ve spent hours walking that landscape near Hound Point. I first became aware of the name from the Ordnance Survey map, and when I looked into the legend I knew that a story could be built around it. Everything about it suggested the gothic to me; not so much the gothic as a supernatural idea, but as a literary form that explored the idea of the buried past coming to light. At first I wasn’t sure how to approach it, but when I also discovered that nearby Dalmeny House had been used as a hospital for wounded soldiers in the First World War, I knew I had the way in. I fictionalised the two locations for my story (Gallondean Castle and Roddinglaw House respectively), and found a way to link the Crusades to the Palestine campaign in 1917, and after that everything fell into place.