The Black Soul — Liam O'Flaherty

The sea roars dismally round the shores of Inverara. A Stranger takes a room on the island. Here lives a couple whose married years have been joyless, until the presence of the Stranger unleashes their passions...



For as spring softens the wild beauty of Inverara, the Stranger becomes conscious of the dark-haired Mary - how summer makes her shiver with life. He is the first man she has ever loved, and she thrills with sexual awakening.



But with autumn comes danger. Peasants mutter superstition against Mary; Red John laughs at nothing, there's murder in his eyes; and a madman's yell hurls the Stranger back to sanity . . . .



Intense, compelling, beautifully descriptive - as Wuthering Heights is to the Yorkshire moors, so The Black Soul is to the Aran Islands.