The Blood And The Barley (The Strathavon Saga) - Softcover

Shanks, Angela MacRae

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1999962419 ISBN 13: 9781999962418

Publisher: Braeatha Books, 2018

Synopsis

A powerful story of love, justice, and belonging.

"This novel is beautifully written and thoroughly researched." - Historical Novel Society

• A Discovered Diamond and winner of Book of the Year 2018 at Discovering Diamonds (independent reviews of the best in historical fiction).
• Winner of a Chill With A Book Reader’s Award.
• A B.R.A.G. Medallion Honouree (Book Readers Appreciation Group).

The north-eastern Highlands, 1780. The disaster of the last Jacobite Rising has forced momentous changes on the Highlands and her people. Torn from an ancient clan way of life into a harsh world of taxes, rent rises, land reforms and evictions, the proud folk of Strathavon struggle to survive. Still rooted in their Highland traditions and superstitions, whisky smuggling seems their only hope.

Eighteen-year-old Morven MacRae treads a perilous path—smuggler and healer, apprentice to a suspected witch. Her friend and guide Rowena is singled out for special attention by the authorities, particularly the local exciseman, who wants her for his wife. When Rowena’s kinsman Jamie Innes returns to the glen of his birth, Morven prays he’ll protect her friend.

Only Jamie’s path is riskier still. Torn between honour and love, he chooses a dangerous course, driven by loyalty to his kin and by a desire to belong—potent qualities. Morven is soon drawn to him. But when it becomes apparent there’s a traitor in their midst, his true motives are less clear. Can she trust him? This is a mystical land of lore and superstition where loyalties are tested, and secrets kept close…

“… written through and through only as a Scot can do.” Amazon Reviewer.

“… the author’s description of the Highlands is so evocative one can almost feel the texture of the heather. MacRae conjures a mystical land of crags and burns, where belief in the old ways still hold and are made plausible by its isolation from what Wordsworth described as the ‘getting and spending’ of everyday life. This is a well-told tale, and I’d love it to become a saga along Poldark line.” J.G. Harlond, historical fiction award-winning author.

About this title

About the Author

Angela MacRae Shanks was born in Garmouth, a village near the mouth of the river Spey in north-east Scotland and still lives near here with her family and two cats. Her mother was born in Strathavon - a real place - and the maternal side of her family all belong to this remote and beautiful glen. This is a place close to Angela's heart, an area she has been visiting since childhood. Here she first heard tales of the dramatic history of the area, its people and their struggles, and became fascinated by it. Growing up in Moray, a beautiful part of Scotland known as 'malt whisky country', a love of Scottish history soon burgeoned. In particular, the history of the county's illicit past and the smuggling of uisge-beatha, the water of life, prompted the germ of an idea for a series of novels to take root. Her love of the natural world and the folklore of the Highlands, combined with her training in aromatherapy and natural therapies prompted a desire to weave herbal lore into her tales. Those who healed using plants and the wisdom of nature, usually women, were often condemned as witches, and she felt the need to explore this injustice. The Blood and the Barley, first in The Strathavon Saga, is what grew from all this.

Edition details

• Publisher: Braeatha Books
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1999962419
• ISBN 13: 9781999962418
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 294