28 Books Like The Flight of the Heron

Witch Wood tells the story of a high-minded, ardent and scholarly young Presbyterian minister, David Sempill, who is called to a benighted Tweeddale parish in 1645 at the time of the War of Three Kingdoms, and how his desire to root out covert witchcraft amongst some of his most ‘devout’ parishioners at a time of civil war and plague leads to tragedy and exile. The Marquis of Montrose, on whose biography John Buchan was working at the same time, has a walk-on part in the story. John Buchan considered this his best work of fiction, and I agree.

D.K. Broster dedicated The Flight of the Heron ‘To Violet Jacob in homage’. Violet Jacob’s Flemington (published in 1909) must be the most underrated novel about the Jacobite rising written in the 20th century. Jacob (probably best known these days as a vernacular poet) was born and bred in Angus on the east coast of Scotland, and her tale is set there; unusually it is mostly told from the Whig point of view. Again it is one of agonisingly divided loyalties. The descriptions of the landscape are pure poetry, but there is humour, nerve-jangling tension, and apt characterisation as well.

Neil Munro’s Scottish tales, especially the Para Handy stories, were very popular in his lifetime, but I prefer his historical novels. In my opinion, the best is The New Road. The title refers to the military road into the Highlands, made in the 1730s by General Wade, which was a major reason why the Highlanders were defeated, since it enabled the army to bring artillery to bear at the Battle of Culloden in April 1746. But the road also brought the possibility of greater prosperity, through trade, to the benighted Highlands. Munro came from Inverary in Argyll, and so does the hero in this thriller, who sets out to find the killer of his Jacobite father years before, during the uprising in support of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s father, James. It is an exciting story but with underlying serious themes, for example about progress and change in traditional societies.

I received this as a prize at school when I was fifteen and passages like this spoke to me: “...you wanted the words they'd known and used, forgotten in the far‑off youngness of their lives, Scots words to tell to your heart, how they wrung it and held it.” My Ayrshire community spoke Scots so it was life changing to read this message by an author from a different time and a different place who was  intensely relevant to my own situation. Being discouraged or even punished for speaking Scots in school, led us to learn English pretty quickly and this bi-lingual tension gave us an advantage learning other languages like French and German which I studied at University. But I will always be grateful to Sunset Song for making me aware of how important the Scots language was to our identity as Scots: “And the next minute that passed… show more.

Before becoming a journalist and author, Prebble served in the ranks of the British Army’s Royal Artillery throughout WW2. This experience gave him sympathy for the ordinary soldier that runs through much of his work, and especially this account of the lop-sided and bloody battle that ended the Jacobite rebellion of 1746. In Culloden, Prebble draws upon eyewitness testimony to reconstruct the brutal reality behind the romantic legends spun around the ‘Young Pretender’ Bonnie Prince Charlie, and chronicles the harsh consequences for the men – many of them Scottish Highlanders - he led into rebellion against King George II. In restrained but evocative prose, Prebble tells the grim story with balance and compassion. Culloden inspired an innovative docudrama by Peter Watkins, while Prebble himself co-wrote the screenplay of the film Zulu.

Diana Gabaldon has written a whole series of long books—the Outlander series.

My favorite of these is the second novel, Dragonfly in Amber, in which the events from the first novel culminate in Clare and Jamie trying to prevent the Battle of Culloden in 1745. Jamie and Clare work tirelessly to help Bonnie Prince Charlie and his forces, though they know historically the Jacobites are doomed.

Their efforts are not intended to place Charles Stuart on the throne that is rightfully his so much as to prevent the destruction of the Scottish soldiers. As a result, they are forced to make some very difficult decisions and even hurt people they care about who do not understand their actions.

The largest – but also the worst led – Jacobite military challenge to Great Britain happened in 1715, when more than 20 000 men volunteered to fight.

Daniel Szechi tells their story more fully than anyone else, and sees Scottish opposition to the 1707 Union with England as one of the greatest motivators of the Jacobite Rising.

A Dream Of Death is the first book in the Kate Hamilton Mystery series.

It is a traditional mystery series featuring an American antique dealer in Scotland. The series has won and been nominated for several awards, and for good reason—namely, all the novels are fabulous.

A Dream Of Death is set on a remote Scottish island. As I read, it felt like I was right there with Kate Hamilton—in the manor house turned hotel, at the Tartan Ball, confronting the quirky local characters…and on the island’s turbulent shoreline that held deeply emotional memories for her.

I especially enjoyed how the exciting mysteries in the present and diary entries from the past meshed together for an exciting and unpredictable climax. 

This is a collection of essays for a major exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland in 2017. It features essays on aspects of the endurance of the Jacobite cause, and objects associated with Jacobitism (like Bonnie Prince Charlie’s silver picnic set). It also has over 200 pictures. This myth has endured through the writings of Sir Walter Scott through Outlander, and this book presents the much, much larger, and more complex story.

A bracing tonic for anyone slogging through the Outlander—or Waverley—version of the Jacobite rebellions, Jacob's 1911 novel is beautiful, painful, and utterly unromantic (even though the deep attraction felt between the two main male characters is the driving force of much of the plot). It throws into sharp relief the ambiguities of civil war and the ways in which personal background, inclination, and affection play more of a role than principle ever could in determining an individual's place in such a conflict. Each year, my students are continually surprised by how much they enjoy it.