Beyond the Boundary

Is Donul Forbes a girl or a boy? A human child or a changeling left by the Little People on the stormy night of her birth? In the remote part of Galloway where Donul grows up, the village gossip about the mysteries and tragedies that surround her: the mother who abandoned her baby without even seeing it; the child brought up by hired strangers, whose only bond of human affection is with the shepherds on her father's estate; the little girl who takes a dead man's name, wears boys' clothes, and becomes the fiercest fighter in the village school to "prove" her masculinity. Donul keeps to her own isolated hills and glens, but life persists in breaking in upon her, forcing her to come to terms with the contradictions in herself and in the world outside. Beyond the Boundary is not a story of easy solutions and obvious answers, but a gripping and uncannily perceptive novel of a young person's struggle for emotional survival.