I've never heard of the Scottish Highlands Clearance prior to reading this book, so I had to Google it and see what it was all about. Very interesting.

I cannot imagine what Ivar went through, staying on the island alone. All alone, except for his horse, Pegi, some sheep & cattle and the fish he caught. He was truly living off the land, a real life survivalist. When John Ferguson was offered money to go and evacuate Ivar from his property due to lack of paying rent for years, he did so because he had left the church and was building his own and he and his wife Mary were financially struggling.

The story reminded me of The Old Man and the Sea, but not for the reasons you might think. These two men struggled together to learn to communicate after John fell off the cliff and Ivar found him and nursed him back to health, but they didn't speak each other's language. So they had to find ways to communicate once John healed from his fall.

This story is not one of action, so if you get easily bored with a beautiful story and even more beautiful writing, maybe this one isn't for you. I , however, definitely recommend this one. It's a short book with a meaningful lesson (more than one) and as you get more into the story it gets more and more interesting and you can't help but to want to see John and Ivar end up in a good place.

The premise is intriguing, the setting and atmosphere come alive, but I didn’t love the book.

The writing style is all tell, no show. In fact, it’s as if someone is sitting down, telling us a story about people none of us know. We’re distanced from the characters and their emotions. Consequently, I never felt anything, which is a shame because there’s great potential here.

The characters aren’t developed, nor is the plot. The ending is abrupt. What could have been a powerful conclusion just made me shrug because I didn’t understand or care about any of these people.

'Clear' is an absolute gem of literature! In just 146 pages, Carys Davies weaves a tapestry of emotion and depth that is simply breathtaking. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the split of the Scottish Church and the land clearances, the story delves into the intricate dynamics of three individuals. Themes of isolation, solitude, landscape, language, friendship, family, and above all, hope, resonate powerfully throughout the narrative. The way the story wraps up is nothing short of magnificent! I wholeheartedly recommend it, and I am eagerly anticipating diving into Davies' other works. This is storytelling at its finest! Massive thanks to the publishers and netgalley for an e-arc of this novel! It was one of my favourites so far this year!

✨Clear by Carys Davies✨

Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 208
Pub Date: April 2

📚John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland—Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted.

Shortly after John reaches the island, he falls down a cliff and is found, unconscious and badly injured, by Ivar who takes him home and tends to his wounds. The two men do not speak a common language, but as John builds a dictionary of Ivar’s world, they learn to communicate and, as Ivar sees himself for the first time in decades reflected through the eyes of another person, they build a fragile, unusual connection.

📝I have mixed feelings about this book. What I enjoyed the most was the writing. It was beautiful, descriptive and melancholic. This was incredibly complimentary to the remoteness and loneliness of the island.

What I didn’t enjoy or understand were the characters. Ivar, John and Mary were never fully fleshed out. There was no time to develop an attachment to any of them and the majority of the writing was dedicated to descriptions of the island.

💫Thank you to @scribnerbooks @netgalley for my ARC💫

In the late 1840's, John Ferguson, a Scottish priest, takes on the extra task of traveling out to a faraway and remote island to deliver an unwelcome message to its lone occupant. Upon arrival John falls off a cliff, but is discovered and mended to good health by Ivar, the island's sole resident. Neither men speak a common language. However John works to learn what he can of Ivar's complex and dying language in order to complete his mission. Ivar learns the joy of human companionship after decades of solitude. John questions much of his life as he is caught up in the beauty of remoteness and language. All while John's wife Mary waits, worries, and sets off on a rescue mission.

I really enjoyed this book. It is so beautifully written. It had me thinking about my Scottish ancestry and the reason why they might have left. I will be recommending this book to many.
4.25 ⭐️

Historical fiction is a challenging genre for authors . . . in addition to all the usual requirements for a fiction author, historical fiction authors take on the added burden of research and historical authenticity. In her new book Clear, author Carys Davies takes on all of these challenges and delivers a new novel that rewards the reader with an engaging story centered around a small cast of characters set against the backdrop of a remote island far off the coast of nineteenth century Scotland. Weaving together a few historical lessons about the Scottish Clearing, and the splintering birth of the Free Church of Scotland, Clear delivers an acutely humanized narrative about a young Scottish minister who is sent to a remote island to "clear" the lone inhabitant to make way for the island's landlord to turn the land into a low maintenance grazing station for sheep.

Davies captures countless details about what daily life was like for the island folk at the time, and delivers a unique and touching tale about two men separated by language, faith, and circumstance, who nonetheless, find a way to truly connect.

Definite recommend for fans of historical fiction (especially Scottish history), fans of nature based narratives, and fans of easy reads that leave you wanting more.

For roughly 100 years, landowners across Scotland forced their tenants off the land. Although economic and industrial factors can explain the Highland Clearances intellectually, from the perspective of people evicted from their homes and left with nowhere to go, this process was devastating. It’s little wonder that the protagonist of Carys Davies’s emotional novel, Clear, is hired to eject someone from the only home they’ve known by people too cowardly to do it themselves.

John—an idealistic preacher who wants to set up his own New Free Church community—is hired by a landowner to evict the last man on a remote Orcadian island so that the land can be turned over entirely to sheep. John isn’t told that the last clearance on Lowrie land turned violent. He isn’t told much about what’s supposed to happen to the evicted man. He’s barely told that this man, Ivar, doesn’t speak English and that the only person the Lowries had who could translate died. John is armed only with a small glossary of words that might work, some provisions, and vague directions about where to find Ivar. If you needed any other clues as to the kind of person John is, we get to see him promptly fall off a cliff and nearly drown on his first full day on Ivar’s island.


Ivar takes turns with John as narrator of Clear. Compared to John’s busy brain, Ivar is a placid man of the land. His days and seasons follow centuries-old patterns. He’s been alone for years, after the other inhabitants of the island moved on to the Scottish mainland and Canada. His only companions are a very old, blind cow, and an elderly pony. When Ivar finds, first, a photo of John’s wife and, then, John himself washed up on the shore of his island, it’s the first time he’s seen other people in more than 10 years. Once John recovers from his near-fatal accident and starts to learn Ivar’s language, the plot of Clear begins to move rapidly. John knows that he’s on a deadline to deliver the news about the Lowrie’s plans for Ivar and the island. His growing friendship with Ivar, however, makes him want to put things off as long as possible.

There are some things that happen near the end of Clear that I don’t totally buy, but I do appreciate the way Davies develops an almost irresistible sense of human connection between John and Ivar. The remoteness of Ivar’s island makes it easy for them to, for a time, feel like they’re the only people in the world. I don’t want to spoil the ending of Clear by talking about the book’s climax. That said, I would love to know what other readers make of the ending. In the meantime, I’d recommend this book to readers interested in the Highland Clearances, the Orkneys, and unusual love stories.

I thought this book was beautiful! I read it in one sitting and absolutely loved it! It was short and just a beautiful story that will stay with you long after you put it down.

It's amazing how much content Carys Davies has packed into this one slim volume! It is grounded in specific historical details of the Highland clearances, the Free Church schism, the rising interest in science. It is richly observed with luscious, real-world descriptions of island, sky and sea. It is rooted in a lost language, and yet emphasizes connection, protection, and love. Throughout it all, this book is replete with character--their traits and quirks, their flaws and huge hearts. A stunning, remarkable work of art.

Clear by Carys Davies is a beautifully written gem of a story. Its simplicity is its strength, drawing readers into its world effortlessly. My only complaint? I wanted more! Davies leaves you wanting to linger in the world she's crafted a little while longer. A definite must-read for anyone who appreciates concise yet impactful storytelling.

Fascinating story about a loner living alone on a remote Scotland island and how the man who comes to remove him affects his life and vice versa. It was interesting to read about how a person survives alone in the 1800's and lovely to watch the progression of the strangers to friendship despite zero common language or ways of life.

CLEAR is a beautifully simple, unexpectedly intimate novel that invites readers to a moment in history that’s often overlooked. We follow John Ferguson, an awkward, serious minister, on his task to clear a remote island in Scotland of its lone inhabitant so that the land owner can reclaim his land for his own purposes. This is an ugly, heartbreaking reality that I knew very little about, and Carys Davies somehow shares it with us without literally explaining it.

We also follow John’s wife, as she grapples with her husband’s absence and the potential for so much to go wrong in his task. We meet Ivar, the man who occupies this entire island alone, and we watch as he encounters John Ferguson, and what their connection means for clearing this land.

There is something poetic in the stillness of this book and while it may be perceived as too slow, or without a meaningful plot, there are the smallest moments throughout the book that carry the entire story. Carys Davies is a gifted, thoughtful writer and it feels like each word was carefully chosen. The book is tenderly written and deeply impacted me. A really brilliant five star read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for this advance review copy. All opinions are entirely my own.

‘Clear’ is written in a beautiful and poetic way which is also a satisfying read and draws you in right away. It is clever and witty and I found myself smiling at the situations and the way they are written about, for instance when John falls and his satchel flies off into the water. I loved the characters, especially Ivar who is complicated and wholesome and practical.
It is a short book but full of details which the reader must pay attention to to get full appreciation of the subtleties of the tale and the gentle wit.
I very much enjoyed this book and will be recommending it.

This beautiful story was not at all what I expected. It’s about the Presbyterian ministers who broke from the established church in protest against the system of patronage (wealthy landowners could install their own ministers in parishes on their estates) and formed their own Free Church. However, they gave up their homes and their salaries (emoluments), so had to find alternate ways to earn income and funds for new church buildings until their congregations were self-sustainable.

John Ferguson is one such minister who asks his brother-in-law if he knows of any work and ends up taking on the job of evicting the last inhabitant of a desolate Scottish island that the greedy British landlord wants to use for raising sheep. The story takes place towards the end of The Clearances, a punitive, inhumane practice begun after the Battle of Culloden in the mid-1700s that forced (often burned) Scottish people out of their homes and, if they survived, either onto land that was barren and ill-suited for farming or onto ships bound for the U.S., Canada and Australia.

The day after John arrives on the island, he falls off a cliff and the following day, Ivar finds him, tends to his wounds, and nurses him back to health. In their weeks together, they use pantomime and other visual clues to learn each other’s language and form a strong bond. There’s a surprising twist at the end that I didn’t see coming.

At just over 200 pages, this is a compact story that portrays the emotional toll The Clearances took on the Scottish people and what can happen when a good man takes on a task that is anathema to his moral compass and sees the human side of a tragedy up close rather than through the lens of greed. It’s a beautiful, atmospheric tale that, in little ways, is reminiscent of movies like The Banshees of Inisherin, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and The Piano. Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Scribner through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I received this from Netgalley.com.

A quiet reflective story set on a remote island. A quick read and well worth the time.

3.75☆

An introspective novel set in the 1840s during the time of the clearances in Scotland. John, a minister who is part of the newly split Scottish Church, establishing the Scottish Free Church. Since this new church is poor John cannot provide for his wife Mary and takes on extra work, such as this job he agreed on, to remove the last tenant from a remote island, as it could pay well.

Shortly after arriving on the island John falls off a cliff. Ivar, the tenant finds him unconscious and brings him back to his home, helping to restore him back to health. Once awake it took some time for the two to understand each other, not only did John need to continue to heal, but they spoke different languages.

It’s a short novel and contains mostly thoughts of one or the other. We also get Mary, John’s wife, although she is not the main focus. I quite enjoyed her character and wished for more of her.

The book, the language is beautiful despite all of the hardship and upheaval. My initial thoughts were this was a powerful book and perhaps due to it being short, but after finishing it, I did want it to go on.

Wow. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I started this one. And that was not what I was expecting. But I truly enjoyed all of it. I need to check out more of Carys Davies if these little surprises are behind the pages.

Thank you Scribner and NetGalley for early access to this novel.

What an excellent, intentional novel! I love when an author feel completely in control of their narrative flow and pace. This felt like the perfect length, with the perfect amount of character revelation and intrigue. I also love a novel about language, and this is an excellent example of using tropes of communication to reveal story. I do wish a little more was done with the colonial history here that this book is based on, but that's a small gripe. I need to go through Davies's back catalog and read her other work. A very strong storyteller.

Check this novel out on April 2, 2024, I recommend it!

The book was good when it described the man's life on the island, both before everyone else left and afterwards. Otherwise, it was an okay story until the last few chapters, though I did wonder why the preacher was learning the guy's language instead of teaching him the preacher's own language. He knew the man would be removed to another location within a month and would be required to speak English or Scottish or Norwegian...something besides the language he knew on the island. The story never has the preacher realize that he had wasted an opportunity to teach the man something useful. The sex scene wasn't graphic, but it was completely unexpected. It came out of nowhere and didn't make any sense. And the wife being shot and then having an immediate recovery was bizarre. After so many details about her travels (and the extreme detail about the man's language), the ending is rushed: she's shot, she knows he committed adultery and he knows that she knows, and they all leave the island together.

CLEAR is an intimate and gentle story for fans of literary fiction. Readers hoping for a fast-paced plot should look elsewhere as this is an atmospheric and contemplative story. I loved watching the relationship develop. However, the language disconnect meant a lack of dialogue, which became somewhat tiresome after a while. I was glad for the short length. Anything more would have been too much. Ultimately this is an elegant read, and I look forward to more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance e-galley; all opinions in this review are 100% my own.