Standing Stones is an evocative novel of 19th
Century Scotland, seen through the challenges faced by one family of fishermen – the
MacDonnell’s.
When Lord Gordon claims
his Westness estate on Foulksay Island in the Orkneys, 1841, he evicts tenant farmers (crofters) to
make room for sheep. Mac MacDonnell, the eldest brother, head of his household, and a fisherman, protests the evictions, despite the impact his actions will have on his three
brothers, Dougal, Colin, and Jamie; and his sister, Moira.
 |
| Peat Carriers (Stromness Museum, 2009) |
Against Mac’s wishes, Moira, his sister, goes to work at
Westness. She falls in love and marries Dhylan, an Irishman hired by Lord Gordon to help the
fishermen retrofit their boats. When Dhylan, pushed by memories of cholera
and famine, seeks work on the mainland, Moira refuses to tell him that she is
pregnant. Meanwhile, Lady Alice miscarries Lord Gordon’s hoped-for heir.
A second protest at Westness turns violent, and a young
crofter is trampled to death. Mac, arrested and sentenced to Van Diemen’s Land
for seven years, tells his sweetheart, Diedre, to forget him. Mac is taken to a
prison hulk in London to await transport to Van Diemen’s Land.
Meanwhile, Perkins, Lord Gordon’s factor, tears down the
MacDonnell cottage and confiscates their boat. Without work and facing
starvation, what will the remaining MacDonnell brothers do? Will Moira, now
five months pregnant, find her husband in Inverness? Will Deidre follow Mac to
Van Diemen’s Land?
 |
| Trumland, the original Westness (Rousay Island, the Orkneys, 2009) |
Standing Stones took second place for historical fiction
in the 2010 Pacific Northwest Writers Association writing contest. PNWA judges called
Standing Stones “a very promising work, with appeal to a broad audience, peppered
with a variety of characters the reader can identify with sympathetically or instantly
distrust.”
I took these pictures during a two month visit to Scotland. I have loved writing about the MacDonnell's in Standing Stones. I'm continuing Mac and Deidre's story in Years of Stone set in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania).
A third book, Rivers of Stone, will follow Dougal and Colin as they join the Hudson's Bay Company and travel across Canada to the Pacific Northwest, my home.
If you would like to know when Standing Stones is published, click here to send me an e-mail at bluebethley@yahoo.com
A third book, Rivers of Stone, will follow Dougal and Colin as they join the Hudson's Bay Company and travel across Canada to the Pacific Northwest, my home.
If you would like to know when Standing Stones is published, click here to send me an e-mail at bluebethley@yahoo.com
I can't wait to see it in print, Beth!! Mac and Deirdre and all the gang live on in my mind, and I feel as if I actually time-traveled to their rocky, cold, fishy coast and shivered in their huts before the greedy lords drove them off their own land. Mac is The Man. I love him!!! and little brother Jamie - we need to see lots more of him. Keep us posted!
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