A Tangled Web by Ken Lussey (15 November 2023).
A fast-paced thriller set in northern Scotland. Callum Anderson returns to Sutherland to help local GP Jenny Mackay investigate the death
of her husband. The authorities say it was suicide but she’s convinced he was murdered. It soon becomes clear that Iain Mackay lied to
everyone who thought he loved them: especially his wife and his daughters. But that becomes the least of their problems when they come up
against people who have already killed and would have no qualms about killing again.
Read our full review.
Seafood Journey: Tastes and Tales From Scotland by Ghillie Basan (2 November 2023).
Scotland has some of the best seafood in the world, so we why don’t we eat more of it? Acclaimed cooker writer Ghillie Basan
embarks on a journey around Scotland’s coastline and islands to capture the essence of our nation’s seafood through the stories
of fisherman, farmers, artisan smokers and curers, boat builders and age-old traditions. In addition, she offers 90 original
recipes showcasing the wonderful produce she encounters on her journeys to all parts of the country.
Read our full review.
Northern Lights: The Arctic Scots by Edward J. Cowan (7 September 2023).
Surprisingly, the remarkable story of the Scottish role in the discovery of the Northwest Passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific has not received a
great deal of attention. This book charts the extensive contribution to Arctic exploration made by the Scots, including names such as John Ross from Stranraer;
his nephew, James Clark Ross; John Richardson of Dumfries; and Orcadian John Rae. The book also pays tribute to many others too: the Scotch Irish, the whalers
and not least the Inuit.
Read our full review.
Jump Cut by Helen Grant (28 September 2023).
The Simulacrum is the most famous lost movie in film history – would you tell someone your darkest secrets, just to lay hands on a copy? 104-year-old
Mary Arden is the last surviving cast member of a notorious lost film. Holed up in Garthside, an Art Deco mansion reputed to be haunted, she has always
refused interviews. Now Mary has agreed to talk to film enthusiast Theda Garrick. The spirit of The Simulacrum walks Garthside by night, and it will
turn an old tragedy into a new nightmare...
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Art & Nature in the Outer Hebrides by Bruce Kendrick (31 August 2023).
The Outer Hebrides is a unique island archipelago. Art & Nature in the Outer Hebrides combines his nature writing with fascinating
stories of folk he has met over the years who create wonderful art and crafts. How do these artists interpret their world of nature,
their culture, their heritage, here in the wilds of the north-east Atlantic Ocean? So come along and enjoy Bruce’s fine narrative style
as he travels from Lewis in the north to Vatersay in the south where nature prevails and art flourishes.
Read our full review.
The High Road by Ken Lussey (15 September 2023).
A fast-paced thriller set mainly in central Scotland and the far north-west. Callum Anderson is in Scotland to scatter
his father’s ashes when he’s asked by a cousin to look for her missing sister, Alexandra. With his life in London in tatters
and suspended from duty by the Metropolitan Police, why not? It soon becomes clear that Alex is on the run from someone who sees
Callum as a means of finding her and adding to a trail of bodies across two countries. Can Callum find Alex before his
own hunter finds him?
Read our full review.
War Paths: Walking in the Shadows of the Clans by Alistair Moffat (3 August 2023).
Acclaimed historian Alistair Moffat sets off in the footsteps of the Highland clans. In thirteen journeys he explores places of
conflict, recreating as he walks the tumult of battle. As he recounts the military prowess of the clans he also speaks of their
lives, their language and culture before it was all swept away. The disaster at Culloden in 1746 represented not just the defeat
of the Jacobite dream but also the unleashing of merciless retribution from the British government.
Read our full review.
Salt: Scotland’s Newest Oldest Industry by Christopher Whatley & Joanna Hambly (14 September 2023).
Sea-salt manufacturing is one of Scotland’s oldest industries, dating to the eleventh century if not earlier. Panhouses were once a common sight
along our coastline and are reflected in many placenames. This book celebrates both the history and the rebirth of the salt industry in Scotland.
Although salt manufacturing declined in the nineteenth century, in the second decade of the twenty-first century the
trade was revived.
Read our full review.
The Eagle and the Bear: A New History of Roman Scotland by John Reid (6 April 2023).
For over three centuries, the inhabitants of North Britain faced the might of Rome, resulting in some of the most extraordinary archaeology
of the ancient world. This book explores the interaction between the world’s first superpower and the peoples who would ultimately form the
country we now call Scotland and shows what it was like to be at the dark heart of imperialism and slavery, and to be on the receiving end
of Rome’s merciless killing machine.
Read our full review.
The Bone Cave: A Journey through Myth and Memory by Dougie Strang (5 October 2023).
A vivid account of a month-long journey in the Scottish Highlands. Walking and occasionally hitching, Dougie Strang follows a series of folktales
to the locations in which they’re set, encountering along the way a depth of meaning to them that allows him to engage with the landscape from
a different perspective – one where the distinction between history and legend is supple, and where his own narrative becomes entangled with figures both real and mythic.
Read our full review.
Hide and Seek by Ken Lussey (26 May 2023).
A fast-paced thriller set in Stirling Castle and more widely across Scotland during World War Two. It’s April 1943. Medical student
Helen Erickson is followed from London to her aunt’s farm in Perthshire. What do her pursuers want? Meanwhile Monique Dubois is
attending a secret meeting at Stirling Castle when an old adversary is murdered in a chilling echo of a dark episode in the castle’s
history. Bob Sutherland and the MI11 team are called in and discover that almost everyone who knew the victim had a motive.
Then Helen disappears.
Read our full review.
The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I by Steven Veerapen (7 September 2023).
James VI and I has long endured a mixed reputation. Here James’s story is laid bare, and a welter of scurrilous,
outrageous assumptions penned by his political opponents put to rest. What emerges is a portrait of James VI and I as his contemporaries
knew him: a gregarious, idealistic man whose personal and political goals could never match up to reality. It casts fresh light on the
his personal, domestic, international, and sexual politics.
Read our full review.
So Many Lives and All of them Are Yours by Ron Butlin (7 September 2023).
After being sacked from his high-power executive job, Morris now has nothing to lose. Determined to devote
what time he has left to creating music, his lifelong dream, he returns to his childhood home, ‘to kickstart his life once more –
and this time get it right!’ Very soon, however, things start going wrong. Very wrong. Not only does his past catch up with him,
but the future that is rushing towards him becomes more threatening by the day. Old bad habits creep back in again. Then he meets Jess.
Read our full review.
Mousa to Mackintosh: The Scottishness of Scottish Architecture by Frank Arneil Walker (29 June 2023).
In Mousa to Mackintosh, Frank Arneil Walker examines the recognisable and recurring features
evident in Scotland’s buildings across the centuries to build a picture of ‘Scottishness’ in architecture. This chronological history presents
an expansive view of architecture in Scotland, from neolithic brochs and classical country houses to baronial tower-houses and modernist New
Towns, including the work of renowned architects.
Read our full review.
Dark Encounters: A Collection of Ghost Stories by William Croft Dickinson (5 October 2023).
Dark Encounters is a collection of classic and elegantly unsettling ghost stories first published in 1963. A spine-tingling collection,
these tales are set in the brooding landscape of Scotland, with an air of historic authenticity – often referring to real events, objects
and people. From a demonic text that leaves its readers strangled to the murderous spectre of a feudal baron, this is a crucial addition
to the long and distinguished cannon of Scottish ghost stories.
Read our full review.
Wild History: Journeys into Lost Scotland by James Crawford (4 May 2023).
You scramble up over the dunes of an isolated beach. You climb to the summit of a lonely hill. You pick your way through the eerie hush of a forest.
And then you find them. The traces of the past. In this book acclaimed author and presenter James Crawford introduces many such places all over the
country, from the ruins of prehistoric forts and ancient, arcane burial sites, to abandoned bothies and boathouses, and the derelict traces of
old, faded industry.
Read our full review.
