Bloody Mary

A cracking novel of Glasgow from one of Scotland’s best-loved and best-selling writers.

Helen Davidson is as bustling, bright and businesslike as the mighty City of Glasgow itself. But walking that city’s streets can prompt memories of Millie and Mary that bring her to tears. The city’s dominant commercial firm is Helen’s birthright and occupation, and only her doctor daughter Marylka can compete with it for her attentions. They are strong women both, moulded in the shadow of the strongest of them all – dogged, selfless, down-to-earth Aunt Mary, Bloody Mary.

Eilean Og is about as different from Glasgow as could be. It is a bleak place to grow up, an island out into the wind off the west coast of Scotland. For incoming infants it’s a curious new home, and in some ways they can never quite settle even though they live and die there. Those ‘boarded out’ from Glasgow huddle together, often into marriage: one such couple is Alec and Betty Craig, who tend their farm and their children and grandchildren with all the care and love they can muster in the face of a hostile environment. On this barren isle, marriages are strong and offspring stronger. Over in Glasgow, the Davidson dynasty seems cursed to see its marriages fail and its sons become tyrants or cowards. It is young Marylka who finds herself at the end of this line at the end of a century. But hope and salvation lie in the most surprising place, out west, into the wind.

In this page-turning, heart-rending novel, Meg Henderson reveals again the strength of her sense of place, her sense of justice and her sense of humour, showing her reader that the author of Finding Peggy and The Holy City is now without doubt one of the most captivating storytellers in all Britain.