Audrey McClellan

Audrey McClellan has been involved with things Scottish for 30 years, but her interest began in childhood, when she first read about British kings and queens in books from her neighborhood library. “Henry VIII and his six wives were my favorites then, and I still read whatever comes along about them,” she says.

She and husband Mike took up Scottish country dancing in 1983, and this led to further involvement with the vibrant Scottish-American cultural scene in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. They’ve been members and officers of all the local Scottish organizations, and Welsh, Manx and Cornish groups as well. They perform Welsh, Manx and Cornish dances with the group Traed y Ddraig.

When McClellan began writing fiction, she found it natural to make her settings Scottish, and her many trips to the British Isles made them authentic. She and her family self-cater, which means they rent a cottage or flat for a week and hang out with the locals, buying and preparing local foods, reading local newspapers. Foraging in the shops for something to cook for dinner acquainted her with esoteric delicacies such as Marmite, demerara sugar, mince and streaky. These foods appear in her books as sources of wonder and puzzlement to the Americans living in her Scottish locales.

Audrey and Mike, a student of medieval warfare, travel in summer and fall to Scottish and Celtic festivals, where she sells print copies of her books. With successful print sales, why make them available as e-books? “I prefer print; I like the feel and appearance of the printed paper product,” says McClellan. “But I asked my son, who travels for business, why he wanted an e-book reader for Christmas. He said, ‘I’m on a plane, halfway to my destination, and I’ve finished my paperback. What do I do then for something to read?’”

That made sense to McClellan. “I’m happy to make my books available in any format,” she says, “because I want new readers to meet my characters. That’s what authors care about.” She likes to blend romance and lively humor in her writing. Magic Carpet Ride is her funniest book; the author says it will “make you laugh out loud.”

McClellan’s award-winning Scottish Island Novels include Westering Home, The White Rose of Scotland, The Devil and the Dark Island, and Rosie’s Cèilidh, which make up the Dark Island quartet. She’s also written Magic Carpet Ride and its sequel Down by the Salley Gardens, The Woman Who Loved Newfoundland, and her “cat book,” O’Leary, Kat and Cary Grant, inspired by a beloved feline companion.

Her current projects include a fifth Dark Island novel, The Spirit of the Dark Island, and a sequel to O’Leary called O’Leary, Kat and the Fairies from Hell.