Almost Then

This is Margot McCuaig's second novel. Her acclaimed debut, The Birds That Never Flew, was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize and longlisted for the Polari Prize.




This novel is set in Glasgow and Rathlin, and is about roots and belonging, about the importand of home and landscape and about the very close ties that bind and tear apart twins.




On their twelfth birthday, twins Rathlin and Breacán Doherty witness an accident that kills their parents in the forest behind their farm in Kintyre, Scotland. Despite their unique bond, sister and brother pull apart as they deal with their loss and grief. Physically separated in their teens, the emotional distance widens and is filled with secrets and lies. As they approach their twenty-seventh birthday, they come back together to fight to save their beloved Ballynoe, the house in which they grew up. Its landscape, rich in folklore, and the ghosts of their parents, binds them and tears them apart. Against the backdrop of vivid childhood memories, the twins eventually reveal their own secrets and uncover those of their family, revelations which are shocking, far-reaching and tragic in their consequences.