Through the Yew Hedge: A Tale of Identity Magic is a lyrical work of magical realism infused with Gothic atmosphere, botanical lore, and the disquiet of hidden histories.
When The Silverton Estate welcomes infant Ruth Ann into the safety of its Fairy Ring on a Winter Solstice dawn, morning glory vines, bedecked in blue blossoms, surround her until Sarah comes to her rescue and adopts her into The Estate family. The Yew Hedge and Iron Fountain are the Estate’s gifts to a child who, arriving without history, needs protection.
Black roses appear in Stella’s footsteps. Mirrors reveal glimpses of worlds beyond her own. At Silverton Estate, a secluded world of cedar groves, hidden libraries, a medieval garden, and forgotten archives, her adoptive mother, Sarah, a botanist and curator, spends years documenting these anomalies.
Stella discovers that adoption changed her name and erased her origins. Strange phenomena signal it is time to learn who she is. When her Fae Guardians allow her to seek answers, she reconnects with her first mother, Ellen Fairchild. Stella’s deeper truth is Ellen’s strange inheritance: the gift of mirror-sight, and her ability to walk the threshold between the human world and other realms. The fracture at the center of her life demands Stella reclaim the selves adoption divided: Ruth Ann, Stella, and Questa, the Seeker.
Blending magical realism with botanical Gothic and dark academia, Islay Corwin explores identity, legal erasure, inherited memory, and the hidden systems that shape belonging.
Readers drawn to the atmospheric worlds of The Thirteenth Tale and The Forgotten Garden may find a similar sense of mystery, hidden history, and emotional resonance in Through the Yew Hedge.
Welcome to the Estate
Books 1 and 2 of the Silverton Estate Duology
can be read as standalones. Now widely available in e-book format.
Thank you!
©Mary Ellen Gambutti All Rights Reserved
