1824 – Charged with a mission by the Empress of Brazil, celebrated writer and the toast of Georgian London, Maria Graham sets off for England with the Brazilian civil war at its height. Newly widowed and a woman travelling alone, the stakes are high and when she accepts roguish smuggler Captain James Henderson’s offer of passage on his ship, she gets more than she bargains for.

Louisa is sent to Fiji for a money laundering conference. She arrives late at night just as a political coup has taken place and finds herself stranded. She thinks she’s lucky when a couple of strangers offer to put her up for the night but quickly changes her mind when she discovers her things were searched while she slept. Then one of the strangers is murdered and Louisa suspects there’s a connection between the killing and whoever searched her stuff.

Scottish cooking, and food thinking, have evolved in recent years and the mantra ‘buy local, eat local’ is now widely promoted. When it was initially published, Scottish Cookery was one of the first books of its kind with an ingredients-based format, highlighting Scotland’s rich and varied natural larder: vegetables, fruits, meat, seafood and game.

Diana Jager is clever, strong and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing.

Sorlie, a Privileged teenager, has his life torn apart when he is forced to leave behind everything he knows, ending up in the care of his ice-cold grandfather on a mysterious island penal colony. There, he discovers shocking secrets about experiments being conducted on the inmates and the truth behind his own family, as he searches for a future and where he belongs.

Combining fascinating description of the lives of dragonflies, with a diary chronicling the ups and downs of establishing Britain’s first public dragonfly sanctuary, ‘The Dragonfly Diaries’ is a must for nature buffs and for anyone who wants to be inspired by the resolve and dedication of a man on a mission to save these critically important insects.

My maternal family tree is littered with Stewarts of Dull and Robertsons of Logierait, all of whom would have known Aberfeldy well. One of my very first memories is of standing on the little suspension bridge over the River Lyon just downstream from Fortingall. Both before and after WWII, my parents stayed regularly at the […]

Beartan Briste is the latest collection from this prolific Gaelic poet. His highly original English intertongu-ings are wonderfully entertaining in their own right.