Here are 50 books that Highland River fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a horror writer whose interests tend to favor morbid topics that are often neglected, end-of-the-world stories have fascinated me since I first read Stephen King’s The Stand at far too young of an age. I love how these works enable the exploration of life, death, and survival. My appreciation for the subject matter deepened during my studies in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program, where I learned how genre fiction has the unique ability to both enlighten and entertain readers. This inspired me to write my post-apocalyptic horror novel, What Remains.
I was first introduced to the film adaptation of The Road in my early teens when I went through all five stages of grief in the span of 1 hour and 51 minutes.
I then made a beeline to the bookstore for a copy of McCarthy’s novel, which subsequently solidified my love of end-of-the-world stories in how they can examine what it means to survive.
The Road is a story that has stayed with me over the subsequent decade and a half and greatly influenced my post-apocalyptic novel.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a different kind of life. I was brought up by two writers who took me to magical places, far away from cities, to meet magical people. I spent my childhood searching for horse chestnuts and looking for otters. I wasn’t interested in electronic games and loud music: I wanted instead to be out in nature, watching for wild things and listening to the song of birds. It comes back to Iona, to this tiny little island on the west coast of Scotland which I will feel always is my spiritual home. In that place, I have everything I need. Nothing that a big city can offer tempts. Ever.
This is a work of non-fiction, and it’s my very favourite in the world. On one level it’s about a man who leaves the world behind and goes to live in the most remote corner he can find to live with a pet otter. But it’s about a whole lot more than that. Gavin Maxwell brings to life the sound of the birds and the crashing of the waves; you can smell the seashore beyond the door of the house and you can walk out onto the beach to see the beauty in every direction. It’s a love song to the natural world, that’s what it is. And if it doesn’t leave you moved, then you’re harder than stone.
The classic account of otters in the Scottish highlands and the naturalist who cared for them there.
While touring the Iraqi marshes, Gavin Maxwell was captivated by an otter and became a devoted advocate of and spokesman for the species. Maxwell moved to a remote house in the Scottish highlands, co-habiting there with three otters and living an idyllic and isolated life at least for a while. Fate, fame, and fire conspired against this paradise, and it, too, came to an end, though the journey was filled with incident and wonder.
An extraordinarily evocative writer, Maxwell was also talented as…
As a poet and a dreamer, I believe in a world where we live in harmony with other people, nature, and the Divine. During the completion of my Master of Arts degree, I discovered a love of poetry: the lyrical cadences of the romantic poems reminded me of the sung psalms of my youth. No life is without sorrow, and the gift of poetry — both writing and reading it — has offered me hope through many a dark time, inspiring me to push on towards a new dawn. My wish for you is that, in these poetry collections, you too find a light during these turbulent times that we’re living in.
While this book of poems, first published in 1964, does hark back to a past era, the poems themselves are timeless. There’s an underlying sense of peace, which gives me solace when I feel bleak and filled with a nameless anxiety. Despite the sorrows, there’s grace in these poems, and in the world Berry speaks of — a simpler world than the one we live in today. Yet, each time I read them, I’m enriched with comfort and hope that frees me from the melancholy of living in a modern world that appears to be losing its way.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The poems of Wendell Berry invite us to stop, to think, to see the world around us, and to savour what is good. Here are consoling verses of hope and of healing; short, simple meditations on love, death, friendship, memory and belonging; luminous hymns to the land, the…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a different kind of life. I was brought up by two writers who took me to magical places, far away from cities, to meet magical people. I spent my childhood searching for horse chestnuts and looking for otters. I wasn’t interested in electronic games and loud music: I wanted instead to be out in nature, watching for wild things and listening to the song of birds. It comes back to Iona, to this tiny little island on the west coast of Scotland which I will feel always is my spiritual home. In that place, I have everything I need. Nothing that a big city can offer tempts. Ever.
I studied this book at school and found myself coming back to it again and again long after I had grown into adulthood. It’s inspired by a part of France that the author knew well and loved deeply. It was a place of pine forests and great summer heat, and you can smell the trees and feel yourself in that landscape on every page of the work. The book is about an old man nearing the end of his life. He is not a good man nor a kind one: quite the reverse. And yet in these pages, there is redemption: he finds himself and he finds the peace he has longed for all the days of his life.
The masterpiece of one of the greatest modern Catholic writers, The Knot of Vipers tells the story of Monsieur Louis, an embittered ageing lawyer who has spread his misery to his entire estranged family. Louis writes a journal to explain to them, and to himself, why his soul has been deformed, why his heart seems like a foul nest of twisted serpents. Mauriac's novel masterfully explores the corruption caused by pride, avarice and hatred, and its opposite the divine grace that remains available to each of us until the very moment of our deaths. It is the unforgettable tale of…
I’m a Professor of Creative Writing at York St John’s University in York, UK. I’ve been published as a poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer. My list reflects perhaps some eclectic tastes, but what unites these books is a fascination with engaging with the world in a way that de-centers the human, and I have done this throughout my writing career. I love the natural world, growing plants, and watching the seasons change. I am also curious about time and memory and how we perceive these. I am drawn towards science fiction, but more the speculative end of that spectrum, where writers explore otherness and possible worlds.
Another alien novel, but one of the strangest and most profound I’ve read. Isserly drives around in her van in the wilds of Scotland, picking up hitchhikers. But she is no ordinary woman; in fact, she isn’t human at all, but a modified alien tasked with finding humans to be turned into fast food for an alien world.
It is a darkly ironic, strange, and disturbing novel that asks questions about how we treat animals, cleverly reversing its language to refer to humans as aliens and aliens as humans. It felt to me that this book was able to touch on many of the evils of capitalism, not just mass farming but also the treatment of women and women’s bodies. But it doesn’t do this in an obvious way.
It’s an alien novel that’s low on overt science fiction; it’s gritty and real, emotional and lonely. I wasn’t the same…
Horror was never something that appealed to me when I was younger. However, in adulthood, I realised the fascination of the unsettling. As I began writing, I realised that true horror is not all about monsters and gore but about breaking our everyday complacency and realising the possibility that the world is bigger than us and how we are unprepared to deal with it. This is why I write horror. Not to shock you with a jump-scare, but you leave you thinking about my words long after the lights have gone out.
One night, a gaunt woman stumbles into the road in front of Lauren and her father. They take her home, but the next day she is gone, and only Lauren can remember she was ever there.
The best supernatural horror works because it reflects the terrors of real life. Francine Toon’s Pine is the story of Lauren, a young girl growing up in rural Scotland with an alcoholic father and only the memory of a mother who disappeared when she was a child.
And while the supernatural is always present, it is the isolation and actions of the living that create true horror.
WINNER of the McIlvanney Prize 2020 Shortlisted for Bloody Scotland's Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2020 Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2020
'Hugely atmospheric, exquisitely written and utterly gripping' LUCY FOLEY, author of The Hunting Party 'It's both eerie and thrilling at once, and had me under its spell until the end' SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, author of Blue Ticket and The Water Cure ______________
They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men.
Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands,…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
There’s nothing I love more than a good thriller, especially one with a locked room setting. I’m fascinated by how people react to psychological pressure, and what it would take for any of us to behave in extreme ways. With The Elevator, I wanted to push that locked room scenario to its limits: two characters, trapped together in a tiny space. This might also be the book that’s been gestating inside me for longest – my mum was trapped in a lift when she was pregnant with me! I hope some of the books on this list appeal to you, and that you enjoy them as much as I did.
This is another chiller thriller, set in a remote hotel in the Scottish Highlands. (Note to self: only holiday in Scotland in the summer!)
The hotel is closed to guests, and Rennie Yorke is working what should be her final shift when a storm blows in and seals off her exit. But she’s not alone for long – an injured man arrives at the door, claiming to be a police officer who was transporting a dangerous prisoner when his car crashed, and the prisoner escaped. Rennie lets him in – but shortly afterward another man arrives, making the same claim.
It’s a brilliant hook, and I was completely immersed in trying to work out who was telling the truth and who was lying.
Remie Yorke has one shift left at the Mackinnon Hotel in the remote Scottish Highlands before she leaves for good. Then Storm Ezra hits.
As temperatures plummet and phone lines go down, an injured man stumbles inside. PC Don Gaines was in a terrible accident on the mountain road. The only other survivor: the prisoner his team was transporting.
When a second stranger arrives, Remie reluctantly lets him in from the blizzard. He, too, is hurt. He claims to be a police officer. His name is also Don Gaines.
I love everything Scottish. My grandfather was Scottish. I never met him, but mom passed the pride of her heritage and culture to me. Mom used to throw out an occasional phrase or poem that I thought was Gaelic. (I later learned it was Scotts but that’s another story.) I decided I wanted to learn the language and found a short course at a small college on the Isle of Skye and it changed my life. After that short course I committed to learning the language and enrolled in the distance learning program. I travel to Skye for the short courses between my semesters and have made lifelong friends.
When Ishabel Stewart’s life falls apart she returns to the tiny island off the west coast of Scotland to recover only she doesn’t plan on meeting Brodie, a sexy American who turns her world upside down.
This is a fun book with quirky secondary characters, lots of romance, and laughter. I could hear the beautiful accent as I read and see the stunning setting of the western isles.
SCOTCH ON THE ROCKSFamily secrets threaten the future of Brodie and Ishabel ISHABEL STUART is at the crossroads of her life.Her wealthy industrialist father has died unexpectedly, leaving her a half-share in a ruined whisky distillery and the task of scattering his ashes on a Munro. After discovering her fiancé playing away from home, she cancels their lavish Christmas wedding at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh and heads for the only place she feels safe - Eilean na Sgairbh, a windswept island on Scotland’s west coast - where the cormorants outnumber the inhabitants, ten to one. When she arrives at her…
When I first visited Scotland, I drove north from Edinburgh, driving through much of the country to catch a ferry to Orkney. This northern archipelago is certainly one of the most magical places I’ve ever been to; the steep sea cliffs and standing stones, windblown grasses, and violent waves put me in a gothic state of mind. I moved to Scotland a few years later to live by the sea. Since that first visit to Orkney, I’ve written my own Scottish gothic novels, as well as presented research on the gothic at various academic conferences. It’s a topic that I’m certain will compel me for a long time to come.
Fray is such an unexpected novel. It’s presented as a sort of ‘missing person mystery,’ but it’s actually quite an experimental and literary novel.
The whole story, written in often surreal fragments, takes place in the Scottish wilderness and is rife with unforgettable imagery. Ultimately, it’s a story about grief, and the fragmented narrative style perfectly suits this theme.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Maybe it’s something about my training as a newspaper journalist, but I have a real affinity for the untold story and the wrongly accused. I wrote many stories as a cops and courts reporter, and profiled both saints and sinners. I learned that it’s easy for the outsider to be made into the villain. (Cue: “When You’re Strange” by The Doors.) I’m particularly interested in historical fiction where we can reconsider people who’ve been turned into monsters. When I learned that the Macbeth play that I loved was far from the truth, I was launched into a decades-long writing project.
I’ve been deeply engaged in questions of women’s spirituality, including the accusations of witchcraft leveled at healers, psychics, and just plain unpopular women.
The witch in question is Janet Horne, whose execution in 1727 marked the last witchcraft trial and judicial killing in Britain. The harrowing story of this woman and her daughter, set in Dornoch in far northeastern Scotland, provides the basis for Paris’s heartfelt novel.
I was taken by his use of a traveling group of entertainers as a major element in the story of prejudice and malice. Just this year, an official tartan was released, commemorating the hundreds who lost their lives. The pattern is predominantly black, with red for the tape on legal documents and gray denoting ash.
'Compelling, evocative, heart-wrenching and beautifully written. Highly recommended.' - Fiona Valpy, author of The Storyteller of Casablanca
Being a woman was her only crime.
Scottish Highlands, 1727.
In the aftermath of a tragic fire that kills her father, Aila and her mother, Janet, move to the remote parish of Loth, north-west of Inverness. Blending in does not come easily to the women: Aila was badly burned in the fire and left with visible injuries, while her mother struggles to maintain her grip on reality. When a temporary minister is appointed in the area, rather than welcome the two women, he…
