Nearing the end of her life, Meggie Tulloch takes up her pen to write a story for her granddaughter. It begins in the first years of the twentieth century, in a place where howling winds spin salt and sleet sucked up from icefloes. A place where lives are ruled by men, and men by the witchy sea. A place where the only thing lower than a girl in the order of things is a clever girl with accursed red hair. A place schooled in keeping secrets. Moving from the north-east of Scotland, to the Shetland Isles, to Fremantle, Australia, Elemental is a novel about the life you make from the life you are given. "Amanda Curtin's prose has the quiet valiance of the 19th century masters, but it is in her mastery of empathy and grace that her work mirrors the master himself: Thomas Hardy." - Chigozie Obioma, author of The Fishermen "By far my favourite novel this year was Amanda Curtin's Elemental. Impeccably researched and beautifully written, this century-long saga set in Scotland and Fremantle is a triumph of storytelling and emotional truth." - Richard King, The Weekend Australian