I’ve had time to do some sitting around with old friends recently, stringing together whole conversations that started with ‘Do you remember…’. Yes, they’ve been the catalyst. But sometimes, when I’m on my own, with no one to talk to but myself, the memory ghost appears.

I’m so into this memory ghost thing that I can even forgive the misplaced commas – and that’s saying something.

I can lose minutes, sometimes lots of minutes, when I let the memory ghost lead me down a path that takes me back to places and people who have embedded themselves in my DNA. Or would have, if that were scientifically possible.

It helps, too, that I’ve rediscovered the wonderful Peter May – author of the Lewis Trilogy. I happened across Entry Island: 

In 2014, Entry Island won both the Deanston’s Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the UK’s ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year Award

May flits back and forth across centuries and makes it work; it being the eighteenth-century clearance of the highlands of Scotland and a modern-day murder in Quebec. This book is about memory ghosts. Lots of them. Beautifully written. I’ve now added the Magdalen Islands, part of the Canadian province of Quebec, to my list of places to visit before I die. Who knew.

I like the name. I like the concept. I like the feeling that it brings with it. I’m grateful for my memory ghosts.

Photo credit: Harefield