Ruby Boat, Topaz Sea is an imaginative romance about two kinds of redemption, one from terrible childhood tragedy, the other from personal dissolution. Set in the present day on the pastoral Scottish coast, the novel brings troubled, 40-year-old Ford Graham together with the mysterious wanderer Haddy Langland. On the remote, windy, decaying estate of Dunsmore Hall, amid thrilling and at times dangerous natural beauty, they explore unsounded personal depths. As Ford struggles toward personal honesty and an ability to love, Haddy seeks to construct from natural forces a self with which to transcend profound personal loss. Through various adventures, an effort to save the beleaguered ancient estate, and difficult inward searching, they and other characters approach an affirmation of love, human truths and self-discovery.
The tale takes place a step or two removed from absolute realism, with touches of mystery and demonic menace, harsh storms, a perilous rescue, and hints of unexamined realms of human feeling and experience. Ruby Boat, Topaz Sea is about how a man may fail to be honest with women because he fails to understand himself. It's about the powerful force that an individual can become -- Haddy Langland is a kind of character whom you have not seen before. It's about finding a true home. And it's about the power of love to resist the seductive evils of vengeance and transform a closed, incomplete heart into a full one.
