Romance is blooming in the book world — though, really, has it ever not? So let’s hear it for full-blooded historical romance, says author Maggie Craig; rooted in history and with handsome, ruffle-shirted heroes. I write historical non-fiction and novels. I’m more than happy to have the latter described as historical romance. They are quite […]
On the Wings of the Storm by Maggie Craig
It’s Summer, 1745, and Prince Charles Edward Stuart has landed in the Highlands, igniting a rising that will set Scotland ablaze. Redcoat Captain Robert Catto has painful personal reasons for hating all Jacobites with a passion. Except for one. Christian Rankeillor is a fiercely intelligent apothecary in Edinburgh. Her loyalty to the Jacobite cause is […]
Historia interview: Carolyn Kirby
Carolyn Kirby, award-winning author of When We Fall and The Conviction Of Cora Burns. talks to AD Bergin about her new novel, Ravenglass. A sweeping adventure with a cross-dressing main character, Kit, it’s set against a backdrop of 18th-century social and industrial revolution, the lesser-known regional slave trade, and the Jacobite rising of 1745. AB: […]
Ravenglass by Carolyn Kirby
In 18th-century Whitehaven, Kit Ravenglass grows up in a house of secrets. A shameful mystery surrounds his mother’s death, and his formidable, newly rich father is gambling everything on shipping ventures. Kit takes solace in his beloved sister Fliss, and her sumptuous silks, although he knows better than to reveal his delight in feminine fashion. […]
The Protestant Wind
The course of English, and later British, history could have been changed on several occasions by fleets setting out from southern European countries if it hadn’t been for a number of weather events which have come to be known, collectively, as the ‘Protestant Wind’. Maggie Craig explains. The Protestant Wind is the name given to […]
Damn’ Rebel Bitches by Maggie Craig
Too many historians have ignored the role of women in the Jacobite Rising of 1745. This book aims to redress the balance. Damn’ Rebel Bitches takes a totally fresh approach to the history of the Jacobite Rising by telling the fascinating stories of the many women caught up in the turbulent events of 1745-46. Drawn […]
Bare-Arsed Banditti by Maggie Craig
They were modern men, the soldiers of the Jacobite Rising of 1745: doctors and lawyers, students and teachers, gardeners and weavers. These are the men often written out of history, or else depicted as gallant but misguided fools. But in reality they were children of the Age of Reason, they wrote poetry, discussed the latest […]
Remembering Culloden
The battle of Culloden was fought 275 years ago, on 16 April, 1746. While the date of the battle may not be as well known as 1066 or 1314, the battlefield itself, just outside Inverness, is an important tourist destination. Apart from this year’s being a major anniversary, Frances Owen asks, why and how should Culloden […]