Books Set in Scotland
Join me as we journey around the world in our book club. This month we are in Scotland!
Our featured reads transport you to the breathtaking Highlands and historic streets of Edinburgh. The Golden Girls Road Trip by Kate Galley follows a woman’s quest to reconnect with her past in a heartwarming, late-in-life adventure, while The Scottish Ladies’ Detective Agency by Lydia Travers delivers a delightful cozy mystery set in 1911.
Book Club Pick – Scotland
The Golden Girls Road Trip by Kate Galley
What is The Golden Girls Road Trip about?
It’s never too late for one last adventure…
Constance Fitzgerald may be approaching 70, but she’s never been one for putting down roots. She’s spent her life untethered and free, but when she finds herself newly engaged and a soon-to-be grandmother, Constance is forced to accept it may be time – perhaps – to settle down. Until a chance encounter throws open a window to her past, and Constance decides to head to the Highlands to find an old friend…
Kate Galley on Literary Escapes Podcast
Want to know more about Kate and her books? I will be interviewing her soon. Listen to the conversation on the Literary Escapes Podcast!
Author Interview with Kate Galley
Companion Book
Each month we choose two books to read from our destination. Here’s the second book!
The Scottish Ladies’ Detective Agency by Lydia Travers
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Edinburgh, 1911: When headstrong Maud McIntyre decides to pour her inheritance into starting her very own detective agency, she asks her lady’s maid, Daisy, to form The Scottish Ladies’ Detective Agency. After all, she knows they have a better brain for these things than most men!
Maud and Daisy never dreamed that their first case would take place at a glamorous house in the Scottish Highlands. But when the Duchess of Duddingston, concerned that a notorious jewellery thief will target her next lavish weekend party, employs Maud to go undercover as a guest to find the culprit, the agency has its first case to solve…
To disguise herself as one of the Duchess’ influential friends, with Daisy by her side as her maid, Maud puts on her best dresses and jewels. Rubbing shoulders with countesses and colonels without arousing suspicion isn’t easy, but she hopes one of them will reveal themselves as the jewellery thief. But when one of the house guests is discovered dead, smothered in their own bed, Maud and Daisy realise they’re not only hunting precious gems, but a murderer as well…
Time is of the essence and quickly they uncover a connection in Edinburgh which might hold a vital clue, sending them back to the city. But when Maud receives a telephone call from the Duchess requesting urgent assistance, she is aghast to realise that the murderer didn’t have just one victim in mind.
Speeding down the drive to Duddingston House, Maud and Daisy hear gunshots ring out. Will they reach the Duchess in time to save her? Or is this going to be their first, and last, case?
More Books Set in Scotland
Beyond the two books we chose for the book club, we found several additional books, from heartwarming romances to historical fiction, memoir, and mysteries.
Which book will you choose for a literary escape to Scotland?
Women of the Dunes by Sarah Maine
Genre: Historical Fiction
Libby Snow has always felt the pull of Ullaness, a headland on Scotland’s sea-lashed western coast where a legend has taken root. At its center is Ulla, an eighth-century Norsewoman whose uncertain fate was entangled with two warring brothers and a man who sought to save her. Libby first heard the stories from her grandmother, who had learned it from her own forebear, Ellen, a maid at Sturrock House.
The Sturrocks have owned the land where Ulla dwelled for generations, and now Libby, an archaeologist, has their permission to excavate a mysterious mound, which she hopes will cast light on the legend’s truth. But before she can begin, storms reveal the unexpected: the century-old bones of an unidentified man. The discovery triggers Libby’s memories of family stories about Ellen, of her strange obsession with Ulla, and of her violent past at Sturrock House.
As Libby digs deeper, she unravels a recurring story of love, tragedy, and threads that bind the past to the present. And as she learns more of Rodri Sturrock, the landowner’s brother, she realizes these forces are still at work, and that she has her own role to play in Ulla’s dark legend.
Scot and Bothered by Alexandra Kiley
Genre: Sweet Romance
Brooke Sinclair’s dream of being a published author derailed when she was expelled from the University of Edinburgh seven years ago. Now a ghostwriter, she sticks to other people’s stories. But when her college mentor Mhairi McCallister needs a co-writer for her memoir about Scotland’s most challenging trek, Brooke would do anything for the opportunity—including agreeing to hike the rugged Skye Trail for authenticity’s sake… not knowing the nature photographer who’ll join her is Jack Sutherland, the man who shattered Brooke’s writing career—and her heart.
Between getting sacked from the University and walking away from his family’s tour-guiding business to follow his photography dreams, Jack is desperate to prove he didn’t disappoint his family for nothing. And he can’t ignore his Aunt Mhairi’s final wishes for her memoir. Even if it means acting as guide and storyteller for the one who got away. Even if it means keeping secrets about Mhairi’s health.
As Jack and Brooke head into the solitude of the sweeping Scottish landscape, they’re forced to confront old feelings that haven’t disappeared with time. But can two weeks and eighty miles heal years of unspoken hurt and offer a second chance at the end of the trail?
Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson
Genre: Romance
Keyanna “Key” MacKay is used to secrets. Raised by a single father who never divulged his past, it’s only after his death that she finds herself thrust into the world he’d always refused to speak of. With just a childhood bedtime story about a monster that saved her father’s life and the name of her estranged grandmother to go off of, Key has no idea what she’ll find in Scotland. But repeating her father’s mistakes and being rescued by a gorgeous, angry Scotsman—who thinks she’s an idiot—is definitely the last thing she expects.
Lachlan Greer has his own secrets to keep, especially from the bonnie lass he pulls to safety from the slippery shore—a lass with captivating eyes and the last name he’s been taught not to trust. He’s looking for answers as well, and Key’s presence on the grounds they both now occupy presents a real problem. It’s even more troublesome when he gets a front row seat to the lukewarm welcome Key receives from her family; the strange powers she begins to develop; and the fierce determination she brings to every obstacle in her path. Things he shouldn’t care about, and someone he definitely doesn’t find wildly attractive.
When their secrets collide, it becomes clear that Lachlan could hold the answers Keyanna is after—and that she might also be the key to uncovering his. Up against time, mystery, and a centuries old curse, they’ll quickly discover that magic might not only be in fairy tales, and that love can be a real loch-mess.
A Lively Midwinter Murder by Katy Watson
Genre: Cozy Mystery
A high society Christmas Eve wedding at a remote Scottish castle sounds like the perfect winter getaway for the three Dahlias and their partners – until a snowstorm hits, cutting them off from the mainland, and civilisation.
Which, of course, is when the dead body of one of the other guests turns up in the snow outside the family chapel. A dead body wearing a wedding dress and a stolen diamond necklace…
The Dahlias were ready for mulled wine, roaring fires, and romance this Christmas. Now, they’re on the hunt for another murderer. And if their suspicions are right, it looks like the wedding may be off …
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
Genre – Memoir
The Diary of a Bookseller is Shaun Bythell’s funny and fascinating memoir of a year in the life at the helm of The Bookshop, in the small village of Wigtown, Scotland—and of the delightfully odd locals, unusual staff, eccentric customers, and surreal buying trips that make up his life there as he struggles to build his business . . . and be polite . . .
In this wry and hilarious diary, he tells us the trials and tribulations of being a small businessman; of learning that customers can be, um, eccentric; and of wrangling with his own staff of oddballs. And perhaps none are quirkier than the charmingly cantankerous bookseller Bythell himself turns out to be.
Slowly, with a mordant wit and keen eye, Bythell is seduced by the growing charm of small-town life, despite—or maybe because of—all the peculiar characters there.
At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen
Genre – Historical Fiction
In January 1945, when Madeline Hyde and her husband, Ellis, are cut off financially by his father, a retired army colonel who is ashamed of his son’s inability to serve, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed where the Colonel very publicly failed—by hunting down the famous Loch Ness monster. Leaving her sheltered world behind, Maddie reluctantly follows Ellis and his best friend, Hank, to a remote village in the Scottish Highlands. Gradually, the friendships Maddie forms with the townspeople open her up to a larger world than she knew existed. Maddie begins to see that nothing is as it first appears, and as she embraces a fuller sense of who she might be, she becomes aware not only of darker forces around her but of life’s surprising possibilities.
The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan
Genre – Historic Fiction
Could one rare plant hold the key to a thousand riches?
It’s the summer of 1822 and Edinburgh is abuzz with rumours of King George IV’s impending visit. In botanical circles, however, a different kind of excitement has gripped the city. In the newly-installed Botanic Garden, the Agave Americana plant looks set to flower – an event that only occurs once every few decades.
When newly widowed Elizabeth arrives in Edinburgh to live with her late husband’s aunt Clementina, she’s determined to put her unhappy past in London behind her. As she settles into her new home, she becomes fascinated by the beautiful Botanic Garden which borders the grand house and offers her services as an artist to record the rare plant’s impending bloom. In this pursuit, she meets Belle Brodie, a vivacious young woman with a passion for botany and the lucrative, dark art of perfume creation.
Belle is determined to keep both her real identity and the reason for her interest the Garden secret from her new friend. But as Elizabeth and Belle are about to discover, secrets don’t last long in this Enlightenment city . . .
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
Genre – Mystery
It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter’s eye is drawn to a splash of color on the frozen ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbor, Catherine Ross.
The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man–loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when detective Jimmy Perez and his colleagues from the mainland 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 neighbors nervously lock their doors, while a killer lives on in their midst.
Kilt Trip by Alexandra Kiley
Genre – Romance
Globetrotter Addie Macrae always follows her wanderlust. As a travel consultant, she jet sets around the world—anywhere but Scotland. But when she’s sent on assignment to help a struggling family-run tour company in the Highlands—and save her own job—Addie packs away her emotional baggage and turns on the professional charm.
Rugged as the land he loves, Logan Sutherland’s greatest joy is sharing the beauty of Scotland’s hidden gems…even if it means a wee bit of red ink on the company’s bottom line. The last thing Logan wants is some American “expert” pushing tourist traps and perpetuating myths about the Loch Ness Monster—especially when Addie never leaves her desk to experience the country for herself.
As they wage an office war, Logan discovers Addie’s secret connection to Scotland: a handful of faded Polaroids of her late mother. Hoping for a truce, he creates a private tour to the places in the pictures to help Addie find closure and appreciate the enchantment in less-traveled destinations, never expecting the off-limits attraction sparking between them. But Addie’s contract is almost up, and magic won’t pay the bills. They can’t afford distractions, but how can Addie do her job if she hasn’t explored all Scotland—and Logan—have to offer?
Even More Books Set in Scotland
Check out this list of even more books set in Scotland!
Meet author Brenna Ash who writes historical romance set in Scotland!
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