Showing results by narrator "Ruth Urquhart" in All Categories

The windswept Scottish Highlands hold great beauty, but also great danger. So when Aimil Mengue's abducted by a feuding clan, she's right to fear for her life - and her virtue. For Aimil's keeper is the infamous warrior Parlan MacGuin. Aimil sets out to hate him, but Parlan is more honorable - and infinitely more alluring - than expected. Though betrothed to another, Aimil cannot deny her startling desire for the man who holds her captive. Parlan MacGuin knows well his reputation as a fierce warrior; he uses it to claim land and lovers.

For the devoted followers of the dazzling Deverry and Westlands cycle, Katharine Kerr continues the magical epic saga she began in The Red Wyvern. In her latest tale, the scene shifts seamlessly between the shattered land of the Rhiddaer and the historic end of the Civil Wars, when Lilli, newly apprenticed to dweomer, fought with her untried powers to save her beloved Prince Maryn from evil. Centuries later, in the city of Cerr Cawnen, the old evil awakens yet again when the sorceress Raena schemes to destroy Rhodry Maelwaedd, her bitter enemy during life after life.

Charley is a cleaner by day and a professional gambler by night. She might be haunted by her tragic past but she's never thought of herself as anything or anyone special. Until, that is, things start to go terribly wrong all across the city of Manchester. Between plagues of rats, firestorms, and the gleaming blue eyes of a sexy Scottish werewolf, she might just have landed herself in the middle of a magical apocalypse. She might also be the only person who has the ability to bring order to an utterly chaotic new world.

Fiona does not remember the years before she came to the priory on the Isle of Skye. Only the gentle Prioress knows the truth about the spirited, red-haired lass's true birth. So it is in a simple cowl and peasant's dress that she emerges from the island's mists and faces the famed warrior chief of the Highlands, Alec Macpherson. Alec has served King James with his sword. Now he would give his very soul to protect this beautiful girl from the intrigue that swirls around her. But Fiona wants his heart as well, and willingly he gives it.

Pleasance Dunstan is used to silently bearing the cruelties put upon her by her thoughtless family. But nothing can prepare her for the greatest indignity of all: being sold into servitude to a man as wild as Tearlach O'Duine. His untamed ways are whispered of throughout town, and he has set his sights on Pleasance to be more than his servant. He will have her in his bed.

An almost limitless archive of our history lies hidden inside our bodies, and this book traces the ancient story of Scotland from that scientific viewpoint. The mushrooming of genetic studies, of DNA analysis, is rewriting history in spectacular fashion. In Scotland: A Genetic Journey, Alistair Moffat explores the history that is printed on our genes, and in a remarkable new approach, uncovers the detail of where Scots are from, where they have journeyed, and who they are - and in so doing, vividly colors in a DNA map of Scotland.

Enchantments run deep on the magical Isle of Cadence: gossip is carried by the wind, plaid shawls can be as strong as armour and the smallest cut of a knife can instil fathomless fear. The capricious spirits that live there find mirth in the lives of the humans who call the land home, but that mischief turns to malevolence as girls begin to go missing. Adaira, heiress of the East, knows the spirits only answer to a bard’s music, enticing them to return the missing girls. But there’s only one bard capable of drawing the spirits forth by song: her childhood enemy, Jack Tamerlaine.

Eighteenth-century Scotland is famed for generating many of the enlightened ideas which helped to shape the modern world. But there was in the same period another side to the history of the nation. Many of Scotland's people were subjected to coercive and sometimes violent change, as traditional ways of life were overturned by the "rational" exploitation of land use. The Scottish Clearances is a superb and highly original account of this sometimes terrible process, which changed the Lowland countryside forever, as it also did, more infamously, the old society of the Highlands.

I’m one placement away from becoming a fully fledged London detective. It’s bad enough that my last assignment before I qualify is with Supernatural Squad. But that’s nothing compared to what happens next. Brutally murdered by an unknown assailant, I wake up 12 hours later in the morgue - and I’m very much alive. I don’t know how or why it happened. I don’t know who killed me. All I know is that they might try again.

"A dagger laid against our throat." Such is the description Prince Dar of the Weslands uses for Zakh Gral, a new fortress built by the Horsekin, the ancient enemies of his people. To help him destroy this threat, the elven prince has called upon his allies: the dwarven folk of the northern mountains and the human men of Deverry to the east. Their leaders know that if the Westlands fall to the Horsekin, their own throats will feel that dagger next. Joining them are two powerful dragons, who have their own bitter reasons to hate the Horsekin.

The final chapter begins in the holy city as it rises from the ashes of Deverry's long wars. Prince Maryn prepares to claim the high kingship, but still the rebel Boar clan stands fast against him. And at court, his illicit passion for the young dweomer apprentice, Lilli, threatens to revive a curse that only she—at her own peril—can lift. It is a drama that will be played out centuries later in the city of Cerr Cawnen. Among the many who take refuge in the lakeside citadel, nestled in a volcano's shadow, are a Westfolk band guided by the elven enchantress Dallandra.

At age 11, Alex Sinclair pledges an oath to the Duke of Chatham promising to serve and protect his illegitimate daughter, Lucy FitzHarris. Nine years later, the duke unexpectedly takes Alex up on his vow, offering the future Laird of Balforss his daughter's hand in marriage. Now a man, hotheaded Alex has difficulty convincing Lucy - who would rather starve to death than marry a vulgar Scot - to go through with the arranged marriage.

For years the provinces of Deverry have been in turmoil; now, the conflict escalates with the kidnapping of Rhodry Maelwaedd, heir to the throne of Aberwyn. Intent on rescuing him, his beloved Jill and the elven wizard Salamander infiltrate the distant land of Bardex, where Rhodry is held captive. Tied to Deverry by obligation and circumstance, the immortal wizard Nevyn begins to see that all the kingdom's problems can be traced to a single source: a master of dark magics, backed by a network of evil that stretches across the sea.

Cathal MacNachton and Connall MacAdie are cousins bound by far more than blood ties and the rugged Highland landscape their clan calls home. The ancient curse of their ancestry has fated them to live by night with an unquenchable thirst that neither can tame. The only thing that can save their souls is marriage to Outsiders - mortals whose untainted blood will weaken the curse in their children and break the chains of fear that have made their clan a breed apart.

Take a journey through the magickal folk traditions of Scotland. Barbara Meiklejohn-Free, a Scottish hereditary witch, shares her own spiritual awakening into the craft and shows you how to integrate these practices into your own life. Discover the secrets of divination, scrying, faery magick, and communication with ancestors. Explore herb and plant lore and specific rituals to address what you most desire. Filled with inspiring anecdotes, craft history, and step-by-step instructions, this book will help you begin a new chapter of spiritual discovery.

The city of Cengarn is under siege. Armies both astral and physical are massing for and against the goddess Alshandra, who seeks to prevent the birth of one fate-bound child. It falls to the dweomermaster Jill and her allies to protect the child's human mother, Princess Carra—and Deverry's already foretold future—by magic and by might. But as the warrior Rhodry wings toward the battle on dragonback, he cannot know that soon he will face his ancient enemy, Alshandra's high priestess Raena, who will use any means to destroy him.

The lives of the Scottish queens, both those who ruled in their own right and the consorts, have largely been neglected in conventional history books. One of the earliest known Scottish queens was none other than the notorious Lady Macbeth. Was she really the wicked woman depicted in Shakespeare's famous play? Was St. Margaret a demure and obedient wife? Rosalind K. Marshall delves into these questions and more in this entertaining, impeccably researched book.

Kit McCafferty's life is quiet, unremarkable, and filled with cat hair. In the magical city of Coldstream, located on the border between Scotland and England, Kit is viewed as little more than mildly eccentric and mostly harmless. She passes her days caring for her family of five cats, feeding the local feral moggies, and maintaining relatively good relations with her neighbors. All that changes, however, when a teenage werewolf shows up at her door in the desperate hope of renting out a nearby vacant flat.

In the peaceful land of the Rhiddaer, Jahdo, the rat-catcher's son stumbles upon a secret meeting between a city council man and a dangerous, mysterious woman. Suddenly the boy is tangled in a web of intrigue and black magic that drags him far from home. In the company of a blind bard, Jahdo must travel to Deverry to unravel the evil that binds him. But there the boy is caught up in dangers far greater than he has ever known. Two powerful sorcerers—one human, the other elven—are battling to save the country from a goddess gone mad.

Yeah, I'm a treasure hunter. No, I'm not rich. Or busy. Or successful. Not yet. I'm doing my very best at making a living in my newfound career. I've got magic, a pair of brownie sidekicks, and enough ambition to fill every chilly corner of Edinburgh castle. What I don't have is any actual treasure to hunt. However, when a young girl asks me for help, I end up embroiled in a deeply dangerous search for an ancient magical artifact. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who wants to find it.