Set on the remote, otherworldly island of Muckle Flugga in the wild Shetland Isles, the lighthouse keeper and son of Scottish author Michael Pedersen’s eponymous novel Muckle Flugga have the fragile rhythm of their lives disrupted by a stranger’s arrival.

In Song of the Saltings by Rachael King, the isolated island of Brack’s residents live by a dark bargain: every year, a sacrifice must be made to the Glimm, the creature that haunts the salt marshes.

They join Elisabeth Easther to discuss their atmospheric novels that harness the power of island settings, and deep ancient forces of myth to create immersive coming-of-age narratives in worlds poised between old and new, lore and reality.