Moonlight is a literary mystery of memory, exile, inheritance and return. Moving between Scotland, Syria, France, Italy, Egypt and the Western Australian coast, the novel follows Isabella Hunter as she pieces together the fragments of a life shaped by war, family secrets, lost love and the natural world.

Born Zabel on the banks of the Khabur River and later renamed Isabella, she carries within her the languages, landscapes and griefs of many places. Through journals, letters, botanical studies, dreams, maps and remembered voices, Isabella begins to uncover the hidden connections between those who loved her, those who vanished, and those who kept watch from the edges of her life.

Threaded with birds, moonlight, rivers, gardens, tapestries, old notebooks and sea crossings, Moonlight is a story of survival after rupture. As Isabella reads Augustine’s papers and encounters Sebastian Bartholomew’s guarded knowledge, the past becomes both archive and puzzle, revealing a mystery bound to family, faith, art, politics and place.

At once intimate and expansive, Moonlight is for readers drawn to lyrical fiction, literary mystery, intergenerational stories, spiritual landscapes, and women’s lives shaped by history, longing and courage.

Available for sale soon, please see my author page for more information and purchase information. 

Cate Hayes Books