Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod returns to the remote island of Harris and the windswept croft where he grew up. Although home appears largely unchanged, Cal knows that he is no longer the person who left.

Back among his family, he finds himself caught between two powerful figures from his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and devoted member of the local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has spent decades maintaining an uneasy peace with her son-in-law. As Cal searches for connection and wonders whether there might be other lonely men among the island's hillsides, his father struggles to understand the son who has returned to him.

As the seasons change, long-held tensions begin to surface and the delicate threads binding the family and their close-knit community together start to unravel.

Intimate, moving, and beautifully observed, this is a deeply human story of fathers and sons, identity, sexuality, faith, and what it means to return home when both you and the place you left behind have changed.

"I loved John of John because, quite honestly, I thought I was going to hate it.

This isn’t something I would usually pick up, and it didn’t feel like it was written for a reader like me. I’d never read Douglas Stuart before and I almost didn’t read this one at all. I’m so glad I did, because now I’ll definitely be reading more from him.

There was something so honest about this book. Somehow, I felt hopeful while reading it, even though I’m not actually sure it’s a hopeful book at all! It just got under my skin in a way I wasn’t expecting, and I’ll always be grateful for books that can do that.

Perfect for readers who want a book that simply makes them feel. If you want to get in deep and connect with characters who feel incredibly, painfully real, this is one to pick up." - Antoinette, Lost in the Reads