Saving Ernest

When a battered suitcase of forgotten photographs turns up, it opens a case-file on a family mystery. The author's grandparents lived a life shadowed by trauma. Their marriage was fractured-but whose hands inflicted the wound?

Saving Ernest unfolds as a detective story that spans generations, delving into both earthly lives and life after death. Part family memoir, part karmic whodunnit, part spiritual investigation, it follows a trail of clues: a stilted photograph, an unknown naval officer, a mother at an upstairs window, an unidentified portrait, a mysterious M.B.E. award...

Guided by contemplative practice and her work with spiritual researcher Inessa Burdich, the author traces her ancestors beyond death. Among them we meet a Gallipoli medic held fast in grief; a career girl bound by love; a lothario ensnared by desire; and a woman killed in the Blitz-yet becoming, unwittingly, a redemptive gateway for other trapped souls.

Rich with compassion, insight, and wry wit, Saving Ernest is no ordinary genealogy. It is a page-turning mystery of the soul-revealing that what we heal in one generation can reach across time to transform both the living and the dead.