We’re on the Black Isle, in 1831. As seagulls shriek and rise on the coastal winds, a circulating library in the bustling port town of Cromarty is meeting for the first time.
Ostensibly united by a love of books, the demands of social convention have brought together a disparate group of people.
Charlotte Mackenzie, the remote and fragile wife of the local laird, seeks an escape from a loveless marriage; her best friend, Rachel Mackay, a former governess who is ardently in love with her own older husband, the town’s minister; the young schoolmaster, John Learmonth, newly arrived from Edinburgh with secrets in tow; and the gentle bank clerk, Ludovic Cameron, who dreams of a new life across the ocean, far from his erstwhile schoolmate, the malevolent Farquhar Hossack.
When the laird befriends a wounded officer, a chain of events is set into motion that threatens to upset the delicate equilibrium of the community.
Against the backdrop of mass emigrations, an encroaching cholera epidemic, political unrest and the campaign to abolish chattel slavery in the British Caribbean, the people of Cromarty must find their way around their new world and one another.
The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean is published on 26 February, 2026.
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