THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

The second title in a brand new magical, fantasy adventure series for six- to nine year-olds.Written by award-winning writer and journalist David C Flanagan, featuring line drawings and illustrations by Will Hughes with his quirky, Quentin Blake like style.Uncle Pete and the Forest of Lost Things follows on from book one as Uncle Pete and TM embark on a new adventure to find their missing plane. With the help of some ingenious squirrels, a kindly dolphin and a friend from the past their new adventure takes them to the strange and foreboding forest of lost things.Along the way they encounter some scary, gigantic cats, a rogue tidal wave and other dangerous dilemmas, but with bravery, cunning and lots of jam sandwiches they overcome the obstacles and make some new friends.

One wintry day in Edinburgh, elderly Lizzie opens her door to Rachel, a young Swiss woman with stigmata-marked palms. Invading Lizzie’s snug existence of dog walks, Cafe Noirs and Glacier Mints,Rachel forces Lizzie to take stock, forces her to relive her friendship with the late Marlene, Rachel’s grandmother – wild, unscrupulous, unprincipled Marlene, who could charm birds out of trees and whose love of life, luxury, liquor and fun has kept Lizzie in thrall all these years.A classic Edinburgh novel, The Waiting is a unique blend of fiction and historical fact from the 1930s to the present day.

Ideas about the Scottish Highlands which took hold around the turn of the 19th century remain to the present day – for many people across the world Highland dress, bagpipes and Highland landscapes are the images of Scotland that first spring to mind.National Museums Scotland holds a significant collection of Highland dress and tartan clothing.The aim of Rosie Waine’s two-year research project include a survey of the collection and an exploration of how such outfits became an integral part of Scottish identity on a global stage.

THE CHILLING AND COMPULSIVE NEW NOVEL FROM THE NO. 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR.’We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’It’s been seventeen months since the Bloodsmith butchered his first victim and Operation Maypole is still no nearer catching him. The media is whipping up a storm, the top brass are demanding results, but the investigation is sinking fast.Now isn’t the time to get distracted with other cases, but Detective Sergeant Lucy McVeigh doesn’t have much choice. When Benedict Strachan was just eleven, he hunted down and killed a homeless man. No one’s ever figured out why Benedict did it, but now, after sixteen years, he’s back on the streets again – battered, frightened, convinced a shadowy ‘They’ are out to get him, and begging Lucy for help.It sounds like paranoia, but what if he’s right? What if he really is caught up in something bigger and darker than Lucy’s ever dealt with before? What if the Bloodsmith isn’t the only monster out there? And what’s going to happen when Lucy goes after them?Praise for Stuart MacBride:’A brutal, visceral read, laced with the blackest of humour and travelling to some very dark places’ Guardian’A magnetic mix of creepy places, dark humour, horror and violence’ SunAVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW.

THE CHILLING AND COMPULSIVE NEW NOVEL FROM THE NO. 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR.’We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’It’s been seventeen months since the Bloodsmith butchered his first victim and Operation Maypole is still no nearer catching him. The media is whipping up a storm, the top brass are demanding results, but the investigation is sinking fast.Now isn’t the time to get distracted with other cases, but Detective Sergeant Lucy McVeigh doesn’t have much choice. When Benedict Strachan was just eleven, he hunted down and killed a homeless man. No one’s ever figured out why Benedict did it, but now, after sixteen years, he’s back on the streets again – battered, frightened, convinced a shadowy ‘They’ are out to get him, and begging Lucy for help.It sounds like paranoia, but what if he’s right? What if he really is caught up in something bigger and darker than Lucy’s ever dealt with before? What if the Bloodsmith isn’t the only monster out there? And what’s going to happen when Lucy goes after them?Praise for Stuart MacBride:’A brutal, visceral read, laced with the blackest of humour and travelling to some very dark places’ Guardian’A magnetic mix of creepy places, dark humour, horror and violence’ SunAVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW.

Changes in farmland management throughout the twentieth century, including agricultural intensification and increasing mechanisation, have resulted in the loss of habitat for many species. The Corncrake is one such species that has faced multiple challenges to its survival. Although it was once a common bird throughout northern Europe, the breeding areas of Corncrakes have been steadily reduced to a fraction of what they once were, and in many areas their continuation as a regularly breeding bird is in serious doubt.In addition, the behaviour of the Corncrake, nesting under the cover of tall grass and undertaking annual long-distance migrations, means that for most of the last hundred years, its detailed ecology has remained mysterious and little understood. Although there have been millions of words written about the Corncrake in scientific papers, until now there has been no full-length book that attempts to capture all the aspects of its ecology, and to present this information to non-specialists. As a result, until very recently, many important facts about its lifestyle and behaviour have not been widely known, even among ornithologists.Although scarcely seen in its natural habitat, the Corncrake is well-known in many rural areas due to its characteristic (and persistent) night-time calling, but new discoveries with the aid of acoustic science have proved surprising, and may offer new ways of improving the location, identification, and management options to protect and enable the population of this iconic species to recover, even to thrive in our countryside. A new appreciation of the requirements of this species and the ways in which our sensitive management of the whole landscape, both in its potential breeding areas across Europe and Asia and in the seasonal quarters in regions of Africa, offer new hope for the future of this fascinating bird.

An invitation you can’t refuse. You should . . .When shy, lonely Ivy meets a woman who claims to be her long-lost sister, she knows it’s too good to be true. She decides to trust Kate anyway. She wants a family. She wants someone to love.She’s making a mistake.Ivy enters Kate’s fairytale cottage, deep in the heart of Scotland . . . and she doesn’t come out.She’s the first to go missing.She won’t be the last.Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Tash’s journey is just beginning . . .Multi-award-winning master of suspense Catriona McPherson is back with an ominous, twisty psychological thriller set in contemporary Scotland that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Discover the charms and challenges of working at Scotland’s most northerly mainland veterinary practice.From conducting farm animal caesarean sections in the early hours to missing family plans in order to treat critically injured pet dogs, no two days in the work of vet Guy Gordon and his team are ever the same.Based in Thurso, northern Scotland, the small group of vets and their supporting staff cover a vast area of more than one thousand square miles. The incredibly wild and rural landscape in which they operate brings a huge variety of work depending on the seasons, with the delivery of new-born lambs and calves in the spring, and the arrival of seal pups to the northern Scottish coast starting in the autumn months.The Highland Vet shows what working in one of Britain’s most beautiful and remote locations really involves. Inside, Guy and his team share the high and lows, up and downs and ins and outs of their daily work throughout the course of a year, making this a truly magical celebration of Scotland’s northern highlands, as well as the animals and people who call the region home.

Brought to you by Penguin.Discover the charms and challenges of working at Scotland’s most northerly mainland veterinary practice.From conducting farm animal caesarean sections in the early hours to missing family plans in order to treat critically injured pet dogs, no two days in the work of vet Guy Gordon and his team are ever the same.Based in Thurso, northern Scotland, the small group of vets and their supporting staff cover a vast area of more than one thousand square miles. The incredibly wild and rural landscape in which they operate brings a huge variety of work depending on the seasons, with the delivery of new-born lambs and calves in the spring, and the arrival of seal pups to the northern Scottish coast starting in the autumn months.The Highland Vet shows what working in one of Britain’s most beautiful and remote locations really involves. Inside, Guy and his team share the high and lows, up and downs and ins and outs of their daily work throughout the course of a year, making this a truly magical celebration of Scotland’s northern highlands, as well as the animals and people who call the region home.(c) Guy Gordon & The Thurso Veterinary Team 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Thin Air is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves’s bestselling Shetland series – now a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall.A killer who leaves no trace . . .A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Shetland to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a local. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears – apparently into thin air.Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to investigate. Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of a local child who drowned in the 1920s. Jimmy and Willow are convinced that there is more to Eleanor’s disappearance than they first thought. Is there a secret that lies behind the myth? One so shocking that many years later someone would kill to protect it?Continue the gripping mystery series with Cold Earth and Wild Fire.

Fifty-something librarian Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name. Impeccably educated and an accomplished martial artist, linguist and musician, Shona is selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a crucial mission involving Macbeth, the Weird Sisters and a black cat.Unsure which version of history she’s in, Shona tries to figure out who she’s here to save. But between playing the Fool and being turned into a mouse, things don’t always go her way. Shona’s expertise in martial arts is put to the test as family tensions rise and fingers are pointed for murder. Can Shona unravel the mystery in time to complete her mission?Never underestimate a librarian!

‘One of our finest writers’ Michael Moorcock’Alan Warner is one of our best living writers’ Jenni FaganKitchenly 434 is set in a sprawling Tudorbethan mansion in Sussex, Kitchenly Mill Race, on the cusp of the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. In some ways, the last days of an Age of Innocence.Marko Morrell, guitarist in Fear Taker, is one of the biggest rock stars in the world. His demanding lifestyle means he is frequently in absentia at Kitchenly, his idyllic country retreat, and so it is his butler (or ‘help’), Crofton Clark, who is charged with the maintenance and housekeeping. When, one day, two young girls arrive looking for Marko clutching their copies of Fear Taker LPs, Crofton finds himself on a romantic misadventure which leads to the tragi-comic unravelling of the fantasies he has been living by.A novel about delusional male behaviour, opening and closing curtains, self-awareness, loneliness and ‘getting it together in the country’, Kitchenly 434 is a magnificent novel about the Golden Age of Rock in the bucolic English countryside.

Glasgow is a city in mourning. An arson attack on a hairdresser’s has left five dead. Tempers are frayed and sentiments running high.When three youths are charged the city goes wild. A crowd gathers outside the courthouse but as the police drive the young men to prison, the van is rammed by a truck, and the men are grabbed and bundled into a car. The next day, the body of one of them is dumped in the city centre. A note has been sent to the newspaper: one down, two to go.Detective Harry McCoy has twenty-four hours to find the kidnapped boys before they all turn up dead, and it is going to mean taking down some of Glasgow’s most powerful people to do it . . .

Glasgow is a city in mourning. An arson attack on a hairdresser’s has left five dead. Tempers are frayed and sentiments running high.When three youths are charged the city goes wild. A crowd gathers outside the courthouse but as the police drive the young men to prison, the van is rammed by a truck, and the men are grabbed and bundled into a car. The next day, the body of one of them is dumped in the city centre. A note has been sent to the newspaper: one down, two to go.Detective Harry McCoy has twenty-four hours to find the kidnapped boys before they all turn up dead, and it is going to mean taking down some of Glasgow’s most powerful people to do it . . .

Two victims. Nothing connects them, except that someone buried them in the exact same way.Seven hundred years apart.An archaeological dig at the old South Leith parish kirkyard has turned up a mysterious body dating from around seven hundred years ago. Some suspect that this gruesome discovery is a sacrifice, placed there for a specific purpose.Then a second body is unearthed. This victim went missing only thirty years ago – but the similarities between her death and the ancient woman’s suggest something even more disturbing.Drawn into the investigation, Inspector McLean finds himself torn between a worrying trend of violent drug-related deaths and uncovering what truly connects these bodies. When a third body is discovered, and too close for comfort, he begins to suspect dark purpose at play – and that whoever put them there is far from finished.Praise for James Oswald:’The new Ian Rankin’ Daily Record’Creepy, gritty and gruesome’ Sunday Mirror’Crime fiction’s next big thing’ Sunday Telegraph

Discover the charms and challenges of working at Scotland’s most northerly mainland veterinary practice.From conducting farm animal caesarean sections in the early hours to missing family plans in order to treat critically injured pet dogs, no two days in the work of vet Guy Gordon and his team are ever the same.Based in Thurso, northern Scotland, the small group of vets and their supporting staff cover a vast area of more than one thousand square miles. The incredibly wild and rural landscape in which they operate brings a huge variety of work depending on the seasons, with the delivery of new-born lambs and calves in the spring, and the arrival of seal pups to the northern Scottish coast starting in the autumn months.The Highland Vet shows what working in one of Britain’s most beautiful and remote locations really involves. Inside, Guy and his team share the high and lows, up and downs and ins and outs of their daily work throughout the course of a year, making this a truly magical celebration of Scotland’s northern highlands, as well as the animals and people who call the region home.

A selected guide to the finest coastal paddling trips around Scotland.This completely revised and updated 2nd edition is packed with great photography and detailed route maps, alongside descriptions and anecdotes revealing Scotland’s rich tapestry of maritime scenery, wildlife, history, geology and culture.Although primarily written for kayakers, the detailed tidal information contained within the book would also serve as a valuable inshore pilot for other water users such as anglers, windsurfers, sailors and SUP enthusiasts.New in this edition:* 12 additional routes (62 in total)* Selected routes in the Orkneys and Shetlands* New photos throughout* Improved maps* Sat nav coordinates for access points

“I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger.”London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character.In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling – and often wickedly humorous – meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.

Brought to you by Penguin.THE CHILLING AND COMPULSIVE NEW NOVEL FROM THE NO. 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR.’We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’It’s been seventeen months since the Bloodsmith butchered his first victim and Operation Maypole is still no nearer catching him. The media is whipping up a storm, the top brass are demanding results, but the investigation is sinking fast.Now isn’t the time to get distracted with other cases, but Detective Sergeant Lucy McVeigh doesn’t have much choice. When Benedict Strachan was just eleven, he hunted down and killed a homeless man. No one’s ever figured out why Benedict did it, but now, after sixteen years, he’s back on the streets again – battered, frightened, convinced a shadowy ‘They’ are out to get him, and begging Lucy for help.It sounds like paranoia, but what if he’s right? What if he really is caught up in something bigger and darker than Lucy’s ever dealt with before? What if the Bloodsmith isn’t the only monster out there? And what’s going to happen when Lucy goes after them?Praise for Stuart MacBride:’A brutal, visceral read, laced with the blackest of humour and travelling to some very dark places’ Guardian’A magnetic mix of creepy places, dark humour, horror and violence’ Sun(c) Stuart MacBride 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Scotland’s larder has some of the world’s most sought-after food. Its phenomenal beef, fish and shellfish are unrivalled – from langoustines to black puddings, from hot salmon to Shetland mussels.With to-die-for flavour combinations, Scottish cooks have long known the pleasures of creating dishes that use superbly fresh, seasonal and locally sourced produce. After all, who can resist the tartness of fresh raspberries alongside whisky’s smoky peatiness that rightfully crown Cranachan the King of Desserts?Now, with his inimitable flair for flavour and expert hands-on approach, Gary Maclean gathers together the best of Scottish cookery from its historic beginnings to where we are today. In an unparalleled range of recipes inspired by incredible produce and traditions, SCOTTISH KITCHEN takes readers on a gastronomic journey like no other.Whether kitchen debutantes or more accomplished, over 100 irresistible recipes will reignite readers’ connection to the landscapes, history and produce that make Scotland’s kitchens so distinctive . . . From the delightful 1930s delicacy of the Glasgow Macaroon to the rich fruitiness of the classic 16th century Dundee Cake. Try out a twist on the childhood comfort-food favourite of mince and tatties or impress guests with an exquisite venison salad.MARCUS WAREING on Kitchen Essentials: the Joy of Home Cooking’Gary is a very talented chef, and this book is testament to his skillset and knowledge.’