Caught Between the Orange and the Green by Joyce Milne D'Auria ‘Maggie’s eye fixed on the boy. She smiled and felt drawn to the cot’s side. The child had red-gold hair down to his collar and piercing blue eyes. He raised his arms to be picked up ....’ Billy Boy is an historical coming-of-age novel …
Category: Scotland
A Good Hanging
A Short Story Collection by Ian Rankin 'To be honest, if you were going to see Christ anywhere in Edinburgh, the Hermitage was perfect.' [from 'Seeing Things'] It's been a while since I read one of Ian Rankin's detective stories - Westwind isn't a detective story! - so I enjoyed dipping into these tales from …
The Body in the Bog
Broken Ground by Val McDermid A Review Published in 2018, Broken Ground is a police procedural set in Edinburgh and the Highlands of Scotland. Thus I couldn't resist delving into it. ' "I need you over here. This body that's supposed to have been in the ground for seventy-four years? He's wearing a pair of …
Tracing the Past
by Andrew G. Lockhart (taken from Tapestry, the Story of a Family) A few miles to the west of Edinburgh, and not far from the Firth of Forth, lies the village of Abercorn. It was a hamlet as early as the seventh century and is mentioned in the annals of the Venerable Bede, the Northumbrian …
Family Secrets
I first published this article on line about four years ago. Whilst my relationship to the real life characters mentioned is tenuous after so many generations, the story may appeal to any new readers with an interest in history and classical literature. The Story of the Lee Penny Truth, Myth and Fiction ‘ “Stay, let …
In a House of Lies
by Ian Rankin A Review ' "Information is power, Siobhan. Cafferty didn't just bludgeon his way to the top." ' A bunch of kids find an abandoned car at the bottom of a gully in the woods. Inside is the body of former private detective Stewart Bloom. He has been handcuffed round the ankles by …
Mind Games
Chains of Blood and Steel by Karen Gray A Review Chains of Blood and Steel is the second book in Karen Gray's Saga of Thistle and Roses. Based loosely on the Anglo-Scottish feuding of the late Middle Ages, the stories are however set in a futuristic imaginary world of the 27th century. The world we …
Farewell to South Africa
[I wrote this piece a while ago, an imagining of my mother's experience on leaving her childhood home. I hope you enjoy it.] The taxi pulled up on the quayside. From my seat in the back, I looked up at the massive hull of the ship in the berth. Now that the time had come, …
For King and Country
by Karen Gray 'History' - it's not what you think! This novel came to my attention through a recommendation by Anne on WordPress. I don't usually read high fantasy these days but the book's description - swords and castles, mythological beasts and twenty-seventh century Scotland - was irresistible, so I bought it and promised to …
War – What War?
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie A Review 'Beer does not taste like itself unless it is chasing a dram of neat whisky down the gullet, preferably two drams.' It is 1943, and war with Hitler is dragging on. The inhabitants of the two islands of Todday, like the other peoples of Great Britain, are suffering …
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