THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

The laugh-out-loud summer read you need in your life, from bestselling author Sophie Gravia.

Zara Smith is FINALLY in a healthy relationship… so why can’t she stop thinking about her ex?

The shocking news of the summer is that Tom – the ex Zara always thought would never settle down – is ENGAGED to beloved actress and all-natural beauty Quinn Foxx. They’re throwing a star-studded engagement party in Italy, and Zara is invited.

She isn’t planning to go until she finds an old note from Tom that shows their feelings for each other were once mutual. And she needs to know – does he still feel the same way? And, just like that, Zara’s on a plane to Milan to crash the most talked-about engagement of the year!

After all this time, could this be the moment Zara’s been waiting for… or the biggest mistake of her life?

Steven is one unlucky closeted sixth former. Whenever he has a strong emotion, be that happiness or sadness, weird things happen. Like, potentially dangerous things. Recently, he kissed another boy for the first time and . . . the boy’s head literally exploded. Steven flees to the miserable town of Grunsby-on-Sea, determined not to hurt anyone else with his “Emomancy”.

With a best friend as determined as Freya, it is impossible to stay hidden for long though, especially when she realises Steven might be in danger after a mysterious organisation called DEMA start asking questions about him. Where Freya goes, her boyfriend Marcus and American friend Troy soon follow. Together, they are determined to find out more about this organisation and what “neutralising” someone like Steven might mean.

By chance, Steven meets a handsome stranger who claims to share his powers and who offers to teach Steven how to control them. But who is he in relation to DEMA? What on earth happened to make Grunsby-on-Sea so lethargic a town? And can you really trust a charismatic stranger you meet in a café bathroom?

Fasten your seatbelts for a flight across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland with Shona the Vet and her trusty wee dog Jock. Travel with them as they head to Spey Bay to help a dolphin in distress, or across to Portree to patch up a Puffin with a broken wing. This fun new first adventure has been written and illustrated by Catherine Stables who is a vet, living and working near Aberdeen. Her story helps children understand some of the challenges facing Scotland’s wildlife. Suitable for pre and early school children this is a lovely rhyming read, perfect for bedtimes or to be an inspiration for activities and learning.

The electrifying crime novel featuring DS Saul Anguish from the award winning author, Fiona Cummins, author of Into the Dark and Rattle.

Every one of them has a dark secret

The Family: After a year they want to forget, the Hardwicke family set out to the Scottish Highlands for a much needed holiday.

The Crimes: They are about to cross paths with Missy and Fox, a violent and dangerous young couple hell-bent on infamy, their love story etched in blood and a dark past which must be uncovered.

The Detective: As the clock ticks down, Detective Saul Anguish is on the hunt to find the couple before more lives are lost.

The Mother: who will be forced to make an impossible decision.

It’s mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing.

She’s a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They’ve hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe’s nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that’s before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?

Margaret Bryce has been having a hard time since dying in 2014.

In a place beyond, we join Margaret as she revisits her life, from her Aberdeen prefab childhood to the birth of her twin girls, through Thatcher’s Britain, the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster, Australia’s Black Summer bushfires, the death of Princess Diana and the COVID pandemic. But something isn’t quite right. Margaret is trying to remember, but also fighting to forget.

A Country of Eternal Light will take you on a journey like no other. It is an utterly original, bitingly funny and poignant novel about life, death, what we choose to remember – and what we’d do anything to forget.

In Fat Girl Best Friend, Sarah Grant takes the reader on a pop culture voyage which encompasses Bridgerton, The DUFF, Encanto, Orange is the New Black, Pitch Perfect, Pride and Prejudice, Shrek, Star Wars, Stranger Things, The Vicar of Dibley, to name but a few.

We all want to live our lives with oodles of Main Character Energy, but for some of us, we just don’t look like your average entertainment thin Leading Lady.

While we live in an age of body positivity, we are not seeing that reflected in the cinema or on our television screens. From Fat Monica to Fat Amy, plus size women in film and television are a rare commodity, and if we see ourselves represented at all, it’s not a pretty picture. We’re either the pitied bully victim or the empty, sympathetic and disposable best friend.

Through the lens of Female Friendship, Fat Girl Best Friend dives into the treatment of plus size women in film and television, and goes looking for that Main Character Energy we all know we deserve.

With his sixtieth birthday looming, Colin Renton decides that it’s time to escape office life and focus on achieving some of his unfulfilled goals.

He embarks on a year-long adventure that takes him from the busy streets of Edinburgh to the traffic-free roads, sodden fields and dusty paths of Europe’s winemaking regions. He laces up his running shoes and joins thousands of fellow athletes in races that test him over various distances, degrees of difficulty and levels of seriousness. His schedule, which culminates with a marathon debut, takes him to places he would otherwise not have visited.

On his travels, he seeks out local wines that deserve a place in a carefully chosen twelve-bottle case, a process that throws up some fascinating insights and introduces him to a vintage crop of engaging characters.

The crossover between running and wine uncorks a tale of endurance, curiosity and discovery, told in an accessible style and served up with a splash of local colour and a drop of wry humour.

The frank, funny fiction debut collection from Josie Long, the award-winning comedian and broadcaster

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories.

Three teenagers believe they are witches.
A woman defaces a local billboard.
A bored landlord tries to influence his son’s best friend.
A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length.
A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle …

Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the mayhem of modern life.

When Joe and Roisin join their group of friends for a weekend away, it’s a triple celebration – a birthday, an engagement and the launch of Joe’s new crime drama on TV.

But when Roisin sees secrets she shared with Joe play out on the TV screen, she knows that between us means nothing at all.

Roisin finds herself searching for clues to the truth – about her life, their history, and the man she thought she loved. And it’s then that Roisin finds the most unexpected plot twist of them all. Among those same old friends, there’s a surprising potential for new beginnings . . .

By the glittering shores of the Mediterranean, two families gather for the wedding of the year.

Carina is marrying her childhood sweetheart, Giorgio. He isn’t the person she thinks he is.

Hollywood starlet Edie is the dazzling bridesmaid. She’s hiding something that could destroy her best friend.

Mother-of-the-bride Philippa is stunned by the arrival of a lover from her past. Can her marriage survive?

As the guests gather under the azure skies of the Amalfi coast, scandal and intrigue are waiting to be revealed, and one of the guests will do anything to hide the truth …

“I rode back down the hill to the athlete’s village. Some of Team Scotland had been watching on the big screen and I arrived to hugs of congratulations. I went inside for a shower and ceremoniously dropped my heart rate monitor into the bin. It was the first day of the rest of my life.”

A little before 1.30 p.m. on Sunday 21 July 2013, Lee Craigie crossed the finish line at Cathkin Braes in the southern outskirts of Glasgow several minutes ahead of her nearest competitor to become the British cross-country mountain bike champion. Lee’s win was the culmination of seven years of training and sacrifice, but it marked the beginning of the end of her competitive career; less than a year later, at the same venue, this time representing her native Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, she crossed the line and quit professional bike racing for good.

Lee Craigie is one of Scotland’s great bike racers, yet she has accomplished much more since retiring. In Other Ways to Win she tells her story of growing up near Glasgow and discovering the freedom of cycling – skipping French lessons and heading off into the Campsie Fells to see just how far she could ride. These teenage adventures established cycling as the thread which would run through her life – not only through her racing life and into a new life of two-wheeled adventure, but also through the positive impact she would have on the lives of others, particularly encouraging other women through her work with the Adventure Syndicate. Written with breathtaking honesty, she recounts epic adventures along the Tour Divide, Silk Road and the Highland Trail 550, and examines themes of friendship, loss, identity and the power of the outdoors – and, of course, cycling.

Lee Craigie’s story is a welcome reminder that there is more than one way to win at cycling ? and life.

Andy Bollen has created a treasure trove of Scottish football exhibits that ranges from Jimmy Johnstone’s oar to Aggie the tea lady’s trolley. Learn why Puskas and Socrates should have been Scottish, the versatility of the pie and Napoleon’s links to Bovril and explore all the wonders of the game north of the Border – from Arthur Montford to the phone-in, Think Tanks, Buckfast, vanishing cream for referees, Twitter, VAR technology and flares (pyrotechnics, not 1970s attire).

Filled with snappy and humorous chapters, take a nostalgic trip down memory lane, succinct versions of famous stories and a great many more entertaining stories covering everything you need to know about Scottish football, and its players, its critics, the fans and the followers.

The twenty-fourth book in the multi-million copy bestselling and perennially adored No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.

If you are the founder and Managing Director of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency you may expect complete strangers to approach you with their problems when they see you having dinner with your husband in a peri-peri restaurant. And if you are Precious Ramotswe, you are a kind and helpful person who will be willing to take on a quest to find the relatives of a man who, many years ago, left the country for the uncertainties and dangers of a distant conflict.

While that is going on, though, there may be other things that claim your attention – such as the shocking news that a club that calls itself the Cool Singles Evening Club is encouraging married men to pretend to be single and meet women under false pretences. Who can be behind such a distasteful venture? Mma Ramotswe shows great tact in dealing with this situation, and avoids harm to the innocent.And all the time, she and her assistant, Grace Makutsi, are getting on with their normal lives – which, of course, include birthdays and the buying of birthday presents. A new dress makes a fine present, but not if, when being tried on, it splits in a way that is thought to be irreparable. Mma Potokwani has dealt with situations far worse that, and in dealing with this local emergency she shows her characteristic wisdom. At the end of the day, disaster is averted. Life in Botswana, that far and lovely country of the title, continues smoothly, which is what Mma Ramotswe and her friends want – and most certainly deserve.

The twenty-fourth book in the multi-million copy bestselling and perennially adored No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.If you are the founder and Managing Director of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency you may expect complete strangers to approach you with their problems when they see you having dinner with your husband in a peri-peri restaurant. And if you are Precious Ramotswe, you are a kind and helpful person who will be willing to take on a quest to find the relatives of a man who, many years ago, left the country for the uncertainties and dangers of a distant conflict.While that is going on, though, there may be other things that claim your attention – such as the shocking news that a club that calls itself the Cool Singles Evening Club is encouraging married men to pretend to be single and meet women under false pretences. Who can be behind such a distasteful venture? Mma Ramotswe shows great tact in dealing with this situation, and avoids harm to the innocent.And all the time, she and her assistant, Grace Makutsi, are getting on with their normal lives – which, of course, include birthdays and the buying of birthday presents. A new dress makes a fine present, but not if, when being tried on, it splits in a way that is thought to be irreparable. Mma Potokwani has dealt with situations far worse that, and in dealing with this local emergency she shows her characteristic wisdom. At the end of the day, disaster is averted. Life in Botswana, that far and lovely country of the title, continues smoothly, which is what Mma Ramotswe and her friends want – and most certainly deserve.

?I rode back down the hill to the athlete?s village. Some of Team Scotland had been watching on the big screen and I arrived to hugs of congratulations. I went inside for a shower and ceremoniously dropped my heart rate monitor into the bin. It was the first day of the rest of my life.?A little before 1.30 p.m. on Sunday 21 July 2013, Lee Craigie crossed the finish line at Cathkin Braes in the southern outskirts of Glasgow several minutes ahead of her nearest competitor to become the British cross-country mountain bike champion. Lee?s win was the culmination of seven years of training and sacrifice, but it marked the beginning of the end of her competitive career; less than a year later, at the same venue, this time representing her native Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, she crossed the line and quit professional bike racing for good.Lee Craigie is one of Scotland?s great bike racers, yet she has accomplished much more since retiring. In Other Ways to Win she tells her story of growing up near Glasgow and discovering the freedom of cycling ? skipping French lessons and heading off into the Campsie Fells to see just how far she could ride. These teenage adventures established cycling as the thread which would run through her life ? not only through her racing life and into a new life of two-wheeled adventure, but also through the positive impact she would have on the lives of others, particularly encouraging other women through her work with the Adventure Syndicate. Written with breathtaking honesty, she recounts epic adventures along the Tour Divide, Silk Road and the Highland Trail 550, and examines themes of friendship, loss, identity and the power of the outdoors ? and, of course, cycling.Lee Craigie?s story is a welcome reminder that there is more than one way to win at cycling ? and life.

?I rode back down the hill to the athlete?s village. Some of Team Scotland had been watching on the big screen and I arrived to hugs of congratulations. I went inside for a shower and ceremoniously dropped my heart rate monitor into the bin. It was the first day of the rest of my life.?A little before 1.30 p.m. on Sunday 21 July 2013, Lee Craigie crossed the finish line at Cathkin Braes in the southern outskirts of Glasgow several minutes ahead of her nearest competitor to become the British cross-country mountain bike champion. Lee?s win was the culmination of seven years of training and sacrifice, but it marked the beginning of the end of her competitive career; less than a year later, at the same venue, this time representing her native Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, she crossed the line and quit professional bike racing for good.Lee Craigie is one of Scotland?s great bike racers, yet she has accomplished much more since retiring. In Other Ways to Win she tells her story of growing up near Glasgow and discovering the freedom of cycling ? skipping French lessons and heading off into the Campsie Fells to see just how far she could ride. These teenage adventures established cycling as the thread which would run through her life ? not only through her racing life and into a new life of two-wheeled adventure, but also through the positive impact she would have on the lives of others, particularly encouraging other women through her work with the Adventure Syndicate. Written with breathtaking honesty, she recounts epic adventures along the Tour Divide, Silk Road and the Highland Trail 550, and examines themes of friendship, loss, identity and the power of the outdoors ? and, of course, cycling.Lee Craigie?s story is a welcome reminder that there is more than one way to win at cycling ? and life.

Salt is a vital commodity. For many centuries it sustained life for Scots as seasoning for a diet dominated by grains (mainly oats), and for preservation of fish and cheese.

Sea-salt manufacturing is one of Scotland’s oldest industries, dating to the eleventh century if not earlier. Smoke- and steam-emitting panhouses were once a common sight along the country’s coastline and are reflected in many of Scotland’s placenames. The industry was a high-status activity, with the monarch initially owning salt pans. Salt manufacture was later organised by Scotland’s abbeys and then by landowners who had access to the sea and a nearby supply of coal. As salt was an important source of tax revenue for the government, it was often a cause of conflict (and military action) between Scotland and England. The future of the industry – and the price of salt for consumers – was a major issue during negotiations around the Union of 1707.

This book celebrates both the history and the rebirth of the salt industry in Scotland. Although salt manufacturing declined in the nineteenth century and was wound up in the 1950s, in the second decade of the twenty-first century the trade was revived. Scotland’s salt is now a high-prestige, green product that is winning awards and attracting interest across the UK.

James VI and I has long endured a mixed reputation. To many, he is the homosexual King, the inveterate witch-roaster, the smelly sovereign who never washed, the colourless man behind the authorised Bible bearing his name, the drooling fool whose speech could barely be understood. For too long, he has paled in comparison to his more celebrated – and analysed – Tudor and Stuart forebears. But who was he really? To what extent have myth, anecdote, and rumour obscured him?

In this new biography, James’s story is laid bare, and a welter of scurrilous, outrageous assumptions penned by his political opponents put to rest. What emerges is a portrait of James VI and I as his contemporaries knew him: a gregarious, idealistic man obsessed with the idea of family, whose personal and political goals could never match up to reality. With reference to letters, libels and state papers, it casts fresh light on the personal, domestic, international, and sexual politics of this misunderstood sovereign.

Morris Magellan wakes one morning to find himself stuck in a corporate job and living the suburban dream with a wife and two children, except this dream feels like a nightmare. Out of his depth and starting to drift from reality, we meet Morris at the precipice. Bit by bit he is losing his struggle with addiction – he just doesn’t know it yet. His only solace and escape from suburban family life and corporate duties is music and alcohol. His life is soundtracked with symphonies and concertos, every note, and every drink, carries him from moment to moment hoping to salvage something of himself before that too slips from his grasp.

Harrowing but compellingly written, with humour and compassion, The Sound of My Voice is a stylistic masterpiece that presents conflict between a man’s cowardice and cruelty, and a desperate attempt to recover his humanity.