Reviews
A chaotic childhood led to a life in nursing
Mary J MacLeod’s childhood memoirs tell the chaotic story of her upbringing – from an idyllic childhood, her mother’s death changes everything. Passed from one family member to another, she finds herself seen as more of a housemaid. The story follows her early life and then through the war as she breaks from the shackles…
Read MoreWhen the landlords kept their tenants in state of terror
In None Dare Oppose, a study of Highland landlordism, author John MacLeod paints a portrait of Victorian Scotland. For two decades, the people of Lewis lived in terror, oppressed by corrupt land owners, before rising above the regime and marching to Stornoway in a gripping finale. MacLeod captures the essence of the time with vibrant characters and…
Read MoreAn exciting thriller with clever plot twists
The body of a woman is found bludgeoned and dumped in the water of Loch Lomond, while Iain Fraser of Helensburgh, who put her there, is living with his guilt. Nearby, DI Alex Morrow and her team have been shadowing a woman they believe to be involved in drug smuggling, but she disappears without a…
Read MoreOpening the windows of the memory with photos
Old photographs can feel very remote to the modern viewer. However, in this collection of short stories based on old photographs, Alexander McCall Smith ingeniously proves that with a little imagination, photographs, no matter how old, can transcend time and place. Smith creates big stories from the tiniest of visual clues to take the reader…
Read MoreHow Glasgow survived the devastation of WW2
Glasgow At War 1939-45 is an important account which focuses on the devastating impact of the Luftwaffe’s relentless bombing of the city in WW2. The text is at times a little dry, but the sections where Armstrong retells the horror of the raid on Clydebank in March 1941 which killed over 500 and left only…
Read MoreThe Bad Fire takes Bob Skinner into retirement
It takes some skill to write 31 novels in a crime series and ensure that the narrative, plot and characters don’t go stale. But The Bad Fire, Quintin Jardine’s latest offering to the Bob Skinner series, takes the veteran Chief Constable in a new direction – retirement. Despite a greater focus on his daughter Alex,…
Read MoreRemembering Scotland’s Collosus of Roads
Telford began as a young apprentice to a stonemason and by the end of his years was called ‘The Collosus of Roads’. He was unquestionably one of Britain’s finest engineers. This book recounts the history of one of the Industrial Revolution’s heroes, highlighting the work and life of a man of culture who remembered his…
Read MoreThe amazing story of a Scottish piano
Mrs Findlay’s Broadwood Square Piano is the remarkable story of an 1804 Broadwood square piano, and two great Scottish families. Originally bought by a Mrs Dorothy Findlay from Glasgow in 1804, the piano appeared in an Irish auction in 1977 where the author’s mother, Hilda Hannon, nee Denny of the Dumbarton shipbuilding family, bought it…
Read MoreA masterclass on how to cook venison
Senior chef and lecturer in culinary arts at Westminster Kingsway College in London, Jose Souto is a game expert who gives master classes on game cookery to chefs worldwide. Alongside world-renowned photographer Steve Lee, Souto has created a book which not only teaches the reader how to cook venison, but celebrates it. As venison becomes…
Read MoreStars shine brightly in this Scots novel
Cameron Sparks’ life isn’t going to plan, in Bright Stars by Sophie Duffy. He and his wife have separated and he is being forced to move back in with his widowed dad, plus he’s awaiting a disciplinary at work following an incident in the underground vaults of Edinburgh where he works as a Ghost Tour…
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