Books like Written in Bone — picked by fans

By the author of the wonderfully wicked Flashman novels, this is simply the best book I know on the Reivers (Rustlers) of the Scottish-English Borderlands C14-16th. I referred to it often when constructing Rose Nicolson and Fair Helen. As with Flashman, it depicts resourceful, desperate men and women, trying to survive and prosper amid the shambles of History – in this case, the ungovernable Borderlands. Finely researched, vivid and balanced, Fraser brings to life the extraordinary people of Borders myth and history. Imagine a Wild West that lasted some 300 years of horse and cattle rustling, kidnap and ransom, protection rackets (the words gang and blackmail - black meal or black rent - come from the reivers exploits), with some great narrative poetry and jokes grim or hilarious. A Borderer himself, Fraser gets the romance and the less romantic necessities that governed these intensely-lived, skillful, precarious lives.

This is another series: The Blackstone Dragon series. I've loved Dragons since: forever! If you enter my house, you'll see just how much I love them (I have statues all over, including in the bedroom!) so this series, was a given. There are many others written by Alicia and I have a few books of hers waiting to be enjoyed. 

Complex, clever, and cunning Gruoch is fighting for her survival and the crown of the ancient kingdom of Scotland–and she isn’t going to let anything or anyone get in her way.

She has no one to look out for her, so she must take on the world herself, and no matter what was thrown at her, she kept on, as single-minded as ever–and I kept cheering her for that, despite her villainy.

This is one of those books with a setting so strong it becomes a character—in this case, a run-down old castle in Scotland.

There’s so much more to love here, though, like lost and found friendships, an old diary that adds a historical thread, and, of course, birds. I felt a connection to the main character, Callie, who just wants to stay home and read books!

If I were forced to choose an extracurricular activity, I’d also skip the sports and pick something animal-related, like the birding club. My admiration for Callie grew when she spoke up, even when she was intimidated.

The beauty of this novel is that it takes sweeping historical change – the Highland Clearances of Scotland – and manages to make history intimate, showing the impact of events on one vulnerable old woman. In the nineteenth century, much of rural Scotland was forcibly "cleared" of people to make room for sheep grazing. Outside of Scotland, this great tragedy of Scottish history is not as well known as it should be, and neither is Smith’s book.

I love its deliberately naïve style, as we see the world through the old woman’s eyes and feel her pain as history crashes down on her. It’s full of the beauty of the natural world, but it’s also chilling, as it demonstrates the indifference of outsiders to a long-established way of life. 

Tom English has produced a series of oral histories (latterly with Peter Burns) which any fan would be advised to read.

The Grudge tells the story of Scotland v England 1990, a game for the Five Nations title that stood for so much more: politics, nationalism, class warfare. It’s a glorious re-telling of an epic game, an upset Scotland win. But I love it for its portrayal of respect between players, of warriors bound by the violent game they play, of friendships across the lines of battle.

Brian Moore emerges a hero: the fearsome “Pitbull” of the England pack, yet a man who fronted up and went drinking with Scots after a crushing defeat. That, to me, is the true spirit of rugby, and the brotherhood it inspires.

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… show more.

Ludington’s book is exciting because it disproves pervasive ideas about wine consumption. One of the big assumptions in the history of commodities is that middle-class people want to imitate elites, and that taste trickles down the social ladder.

Ludington shows that the opposite was true 250 years ago in England and Scotland: aristocrats started changing their wine-buying habits to appear more sympathetic to the middling sort. This trickle-up is an eighteenth-century equivalent of affluent hipsters drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon or fashionistas buying $400 jeans.

I’m the type of reader who finishes each sentence thinking yeah, but how do we know that?, so I find Ludington’s generous footnotes and detailed cellar inventories to be deeply satisfying. This is not an easy read, but it’s a thoroughly enriching one.   

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.

It takes real guts to prove all the naysayers wrong, and become a hero.

Raassay is a remote Scottish island, site of the Rona lighthouse, which Calum MacLeod tended full time until 1967 when he was 56, and the lighthouse was semi-automated. As the only man living in northern Raasay, he had some more time on his hands.

To bring more people to the area, he decided to build a road, nearly two miles long, using just a pick, a shovel, a wheelbarrow, multiple pairs of wellington boots, and his bare hands. It took him ten years. Today on Calum’s Road or “Rathad Chaluim” (in Gaelic) drivers are in awe of one man’s determination to do what he believed was needed, despite the cost.