During a day tour to Glasgow, they visit a medieval museum on a whim – something Katie is not so excited about. As John falls in love with the medieval displays, Katie can't help but notice a strange, squirmy little man seemingly following her. “Can I help you?” The squirmish man – startled, looks up at Katie. “I am Dr. Oscar Wellesley.” He introduces himself and invites both Katie and John into a vault in the basement, to pick out a love story which describes two ancient Picts – a startling resemblance in looks to both Katie and John. They were involved in fighting off the Romans and, according to the story, were key to the withdrawal of the Romans from Southern Scotland.  “What the hell.” As the two are shocked by what they read in the book, they find themselves losing grip on reality. As they come back to consciousness, there is no museum, no vault – just mud, grass and an ancient battlefield. During this time and era, Katie and John discover their true past and begin to realize who they are and what they have become. What happens to Katie and John as they make their way through time? Will they ever make it back to present day? Do they find the love which had once bonded the two together? Find out in this heartwarming Scottish Historical Time Travel Romance.

    Five other tales describe folk in Britain's lowest professional class between the late-1950s and 60s.

    Starting with the CWA awarding winning Raven Black, this special ebook also contains the second and third novels in the Shetland series, White Nights and Red Bones.Raven Black: It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter’s eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour Catherine Ross. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance . . . The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man – loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when police insist on opening out the investigation a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine’s neighbours nervously lock their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst.

    On one level it is a vivid and evocative account of a remarkable trek - never attempted before - on another it celebrates the uniqueness of the Highlands, the scenery and ecology of 'the last wilderness in Europe'. The challenge Mike Cawthorne set himself was to climb all 135 of Scotland's 1,000-metre peaks, which stretch in an unbroken chain through the heart of the Highlands, from Sutherland to the Eastern Cairngorms, down to Loch Lomond, and west to Glencoe. His route traversed the most spectacular landscape in Scotland, linking every portion of wilderness, and was completed in the midst of the harshest winter conditions imaginable. Acclaimed on its first publication in 2000, this edition contains an epilogue in which Mike Cawthorne reflects on his trek and wonders what has changed since he carried it out. He warns that 'wild land in Scotland has never been under greater threat'. Hell of a Journey is a reminder of what we could so easily lose forever.

    Findlay sets out to build a new life for herself in Glasgow, and opens a tea dress shop in the city centre.Is Gordan the man for Findlay, or perhaps McGarra? And will Christmas in Glasgow be everything she's wished for?

    

    A bit too far removed for the taste of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the Royal Dornoch Golf Club has never hosted a British Open, but that has hardly diminished its mystique or its renown. In an influential piece for The New Yorker in 1964, Herbert Warren Wind wrote, "It is the most natural course in the world. No golfer has completed his education until he has played and studied Royal Dornoch." If any town in the world deserves to be described as "the village of golf," it's Dornoch. You can take the legendary links away from St. Andrews, and you'll still have a charming and beautiful university town with great historic significance; take the links away from Dornoch and it would be as little noted or known as its neighbors Golspie, Tain, and Brora. (The town is forty miles north of Inverness, generally thought of as the northernmost outpost of civilization in Scotland.) The game has been played in Dornoch for some four hundred years. Its native son Donald Ross brought the style of the Dornoch links to America, where his legendary, classic courses include Pinehurst #2, Seminole, and Oak Hill. Lorne Rubenstein decided to spend a summer in Dornoch to clear the muddle from his golfing mind and to rediscover the natural charms of the game he loves. But in the Highlands he found far more than bracing air and challenging greens. He found a people shaped by the harshness of the land and the difficulty of drawing a living from it, and still haunted by a historic wrong inflicted on their ancestors nearly two centuries before. Rubenstein met many people of great thoughtfulness and spirit, eager to share their worldviews, their life stories, and a wee dram or two. And as he explored the empty, rugged landscape, he came to understand the ways in which the thorny, quarrelsome qualities of the game of golf reflect the values, character, and history of the people who brought it into the world. A Season in Dornoch is both the story of one man's immersion in the game of golf and an exploration of the world from which it emerged. Part travelogue, part portraiture, part good old-fashioned tale of matches played and friendships made, it takes us on an unforgettable journey to a marvelous, moody, mystical place.

    A bloody scarf, a criminal father, and an ancient castle mark the trail, and before Callum knows it, that simple missing persons case turns into a deadly web of greed and lies.Can MacBain cut through it all in time to save the child's life? And, if so, what will be the cost?

    Charlotte is ecstatically in love with Geoffrey; Peter prepares for the day when he will inherit the family distillery, while Andrew, gregarious and fun-loving, is already turning heads and hearts. Nell, the youngest, contents herself with daydreams of a handsome highlander. The Great War, however, has no respect for family life. As those carefree pre-war days fade, with death and devastation brought in their wake, the Drummonds are plunged into the horrors of the trenches in France. Yet those who survive discover that love can transcend class, creed, and country.

    When ruthless gangster James Machie’s accountant, known as the Magician, is found stabbed to death in a multi-storey car park it’s clear all is not well within Machie’s organisation. Meanwhile Daley’s friend and colleague DC Brian Scott has been having some problems of his own. To save his job, Scott is persuaded to revisit his past in an attempt to uncover the identity of a corrupt police officer. But there’s a problem. To do so, he must confront Machie and his cohorts. Brian Scott is soon embroiled in a deadly game of cat and mouse with his childhood friends. As Daley seeks out his old mentor, Ian Burns, to help save his friend and find out who is telling the truth, it becomes a desperate race against time.

    War, secrets and betrayal cast a shadow over the Maclarens from the battlefield to the drawing-room. Young Andrew Maclaren, a brave yet sensitive soldier, faces the danger of conflicts in India and China. He must choose between the regiment he serves and the woman he loves. Willie Bruce, Andrew's childhood friend and fellow soldier, discovers loyalty is not always rewarded. Maud Westburn, beautiful but damaged, is the woman who loves them both. Will this love tear a family, and a regiment, apart? A sweeping saga about passion and honour, and the senseless brutality of war.

    . . BANE’S BELIEF Kenzie McCleod thought the witch-hunting frenzy would never find her in the Highlands. Her un-natural connection to animals and her bothersome beauty could be hidden, as long as she and her mother kept to themselves. So what had prompted her to accept the invitation of the compelling, and wickedly handsome, Laird of the Mackays? Laird Bane Mackay knows he should marry a woman of his clan, but none have sparked his curiosity like the black-haired lass with the winning smile. Why can’t he ignore his attraction to this unsuitable stranger whose haunting violet eyes and strange abilities make him rethink magic in the world? In following his heart, he may very well bring the wrath of the Witch Pricker (hunter) down on them all. WANDERING HEART Sharing a soul-searing kiss with the most devastatingly handsome man she’s ever met was not part of Fiona Keenan’s plan. Neither was stealing an ancient family heirloom out of his pocket. When Cameron Mackay decides to pursue the ring, neither one of them is prepared for what happens between them. For, in a rough and tumble mining town, where everyone is a fortune hunter and a gambler, love might just be the one risk no one is willing to take.

    Those trapped inside the castle are used to dealing with the volatile mix of light-fingered teens and obnoxious tourists; less so a truckload of explosives and a hidden agenda. For Catherine and her team, it's a recipe for a potentially deadly day off. Tense, twisted and laugh-out-loud funny, Siege Mentality is a day-trip you won't forget. For more from Catherine McLeod, read the Jasmine Sharp trilogy, beginning with Where the Bodies are Buried , a sample from which is included with this short story.

    Tragedy follows when they both fall in love with the same man.

    But when Alan Horne and Edwyn Collins decided to start their own label from a shabby Glasgow flat in 1979, nobody was going to stand in their way.Postcard Records was the mad, makeshift and quite preposterous result. Launching the careers of Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and cult heroes Josef K, the self-styled 'Sound of Young Scotland' stuck it to the London music biz and, quite by accident, kickstarted the 1980s indie music revolution.Simon Goddard has interviewed everyone involved in the making of the Postcard legend to tell this thrilling rock'n'roll story of punk audacity, knickerbocker glories, broken windscreens, raccoon-fur hats, comedy, violence and creating something beautiful from nothing, against all the odds.