Sansom must read this Saltire Society Literary Awards Scottish First Book of the Year – a great non-fiction adventure about Scotland’s most notorious clan chief.Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, was the last of the great Scottish chiefs – and the last nobleman executed for treason. Determined to seek his fortune with the exiled Jacobite king in France, Fraser acted as a spy for both the Stuarts and the Hanoverians; claimed to be both Protestant and Roman Catholic.In July 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie launched his last attempt to seize back the throne, supported by Fraser and his clans. They were defeated at Culloden. Fraser was found hiding in a tree.This swashbuckling spy story recreates an extraordinary period of history in its retelling of Fraser’s life. He is surely one of Scotland’s most notorious and romantic figures, a cunning and ambitious soldier who died a martyr for his country and an independent Scotland.

    Rural lifestyle. Something has to give... Lucy McIntosh is a city girl through and through. She works in an advertising agency in Edinburgh with her boyfriend Jake, and her life is a whirl of deadlines, corporate parties, and coffee shops. Then Lucy learns that she is to inherit a hotel in the Highlands from her long-lost Uncle Calum. At first insistent that she will sell it to fund her and Jake’s move to London, she arrives in her uncle’s village to find The Mormaer Inn, a huge, tumbledown place perpetually on the brink of failure – and falls in love with it. Lucy is determined to restore the hotel to former glories. But her dream is blocked at every turn by obstacles. Rooms that need complete renovation, staff members who need personality transplants … and Graham Sutherland. His family have been local landowners for generations, and he wants the Inn for himself. Graham wants to demolish the hotel to build a holiday park, and is so confident Lucy will sell to him that he has already applied for planning permission. He is furious to think that naïve newcomer Lucy might have her own plans for the hotel – and adamant he’ll get what he wants …

    The only good news is that Steven, her increasingly distant teenage son, is about to move back in with her. The bad news is that Bob, her ex-husband, wants the house. Trisha's mind is unexpectedly made up when she inherits a place in the Highlands. Having pictured a rural idyll, she finds rain, sheep, a jaywalking dog and kamikaze midges. And more rain. Her social life is so limited that she even contemplates joining the Inversnechty Mental Health Awareness Group just for the craic. Then three nurses on holiday leave from Saudi invite Trisha to a ceilidh. A night of whisky-fuelled high jinks with a frozen salmon ensues which leads to a significant encounter with Spider, the local Lothario, and a dramatic discovery that will change Trisha's future forever.