Gift from the Gallowgate (39 page)

THE HOUSE OF LYALL

Marion Cheyne is young, poor and ambitious. Her humble village roots and poorly paid job offer few opportunities and Marion feels trapped in a dead-end existence. So when an unexpected
chance to escape presents itself, Marion grabs it, ignoring the moral implications of her actions, and sets out on a new life far away in Aberdeen. Years later and the struggling servant girl
Marion has been transformed into Marianne, wife of the heir to Castle Lyall, and every inch the lady of the glen. More a business arrangement than a love match, Marianne’s commitment to her role
and to the name of Lyall is total, and as family, friends and world wars come and go, she will stop at nothing to protect her hard-won position. But the many secrets of her past refuse to stay
safely buried. Nothing in the small community of the glen can remain hidden forever...

THE NICKUM

Willie Fowlie’s grandmother calls him a ‘nickum’ - he is a mischievous Aberdeenshire boy who often acts instinctively, bearing little or no consideration for the consequences of his
actions. When he is eleven, his playful antics lead to a full-blown murder enquiry, but it is soon recognised that the hunt is based on nothing more material than Willie’s imagination. Four years
later, however, Willie witnesses a real murder, but believing that his eye-witness testimony is simply another fabrication, the police wind down the investigation. It is not until five years
later, during World War II, that Willie is able to prove the sincerity of his account and the murderer is apprehended. Despite his errant ways, Willie’s headmaster recognises his potential and
finances his matriculation at University along with his own daughter, Millie, in late September 1939. Free from the constraints of their childhood, the blossoming of their love begins to unfold.
However, within weeks of the outbreak of war, Willie’s best friend from childhood enlists in the army, but Willie feels duty-bound to his sponsor to obtain his degree. Two years later, however,
in 1941, Willie is confronted with the news that his friend has been killed in action. Racked with guilt, blaming himself for not being there to protect him, Willie abandons his education and
volunteers for the Gordon Highlanders. The course of his life is now completely changed, the troubled boy that he was now a distant memory, but can the ‘nickum’ ever atone for the decisions that
he has made?

JAM AND JEOPARDY

89-year-old spinster, Janet Stouter, takes pleasure in raking up scandals, old and new, about her neighbours. She also relishes refusing her two nephews the money they seek to bolster their
businesses. When a retired glass worker gives her some arsenic to kill the rats in her garden, she hatches a plan to test them. She tells them about the arsenic and waits for them to prove
themselves worthy of inheriting when she dies. Whoever attempts to kill her will be her sole heir; if both do, of course, they will each get half share of her substantial amount of savings. She
does, however, make sure that her life will be in no danger. Unfortunately, the old lady spreads word of her newly acquired poison around the village, thus laying the seeds of murderous intent in
several people. She had not foreseen that several other would-be assassins will come into the frame or that one will succeed in silencing her vicious tongue forever. This is a whodunnit in the
classic style of Agatha Chrisite.

MONDAY GIRL

After the death of her father, 10-year-old Renee and her mother are forced to open up their Aberdeen home to two lodgers. An impressionable and romantic child, Renee grows up weaving
romantic fantasies around both men, firstly the dependable Jack and later the charming Fergus, who cements her obsession with him by seducing her, then breaking her heart. With the advent of the
Second World War, Renee is thrown into further turmoil as the two men of her life are sent into action, leaving her to a whirlwind of RAF sergeants stationed in the area. It is during this period
that she meets and falls in love with Glynn, and the pair decide to marry. However, something remains wrong in Renee’s world... could her secret fear of Mondays be the reason for her inability to
find lasting happiness?

THREE KINGS

Three huge rocks rose from the bay of the tiny Scottish fishing village of Cullen. The locals called them ‘The Three Kings’, but to orphaned Katie Mair they were ‘The Three Wise Men’, her
trusted friends and the only ones to whom she could tell her troubles. And as she leaves her childhood behind, her troubles can only increase. At fourteen, she is old enough to go into service,
and her formidable grandmother has already found her a position. But the household, bleak and cut off at the Howe of Denty, is not as respectable as it first appears. And one desperate act of
defence from Katie is to a start a chain of despair, passion and revenge.

DUPLICITY

A novella and collection of short stories by Scotland’s favourite novelist. Two men sit petrified on Christmas Eve at the thought of spending it in supernatural company; a young family
makes a tense Cross-channel trip in fear of some unspecified threat; an old man contemplates jumping to his death at the thought of being evicted from the house in which he has lived all his
life. In this book, Doris Davidson looks back over an immensely successful writing career in a collection of twenty short stories, which also includes her eagerly awaited latest work, the novella
"Duplicity". Covering a wide range of themes and moods, these stories are a wonderful tribute to the skill and imagination of one of Scotland’s best-loved authors.