An epic tale of lust and ambition, murder, treachery and revenge at the court of Mary, Queen of Scots. Marie Hepburn, illegitimate daughter of the Bishop of Moray, is only seventeen when she is promised in marriage to the repulsive, middle-aged Duke of Glasgow. But this betrothal proves to be no more than the beginning of Marie's troubles, as she becomes enmeshed in a web of deceit and treachery spun by a suave, handsome and utterly ruthless English agent. His knowledge of the dark secrets of Marie's past casts a shadow over her life, until she meets and falls in love with a young Scottish nobleman. But at the Court of Mary, Queen of Scots, where betrayal and violence are commonplace, Marie soon discovers that love and lust are deadly rivals...

In Glasgow at the beginning of the 1930s, the lives of two very different families are about to be changed forever by a tragedy that seems to defy explanation. In their splendid home in the West End, everything seems perfect in the comfortable, privileged lives of bestselling novelist Nicholas Cartwright, his beautiful wife Virginia and their two children. Until one dreadful day, when their world is touched by tragedy and they find themselves struggling to come to terms with a mystery that will haunt them for years to come. Meanwhile, in the run-down tenements of Springburn, the Gourlay family are battling to make ends meet. The Depression has hit Glasgow hard, Erchie Gourlay is unemployed, and only the long hours his daughters spend sewing and dressmaking keeps the spectre of poverty at bay. The future looks bleak for the Gourlays, until the arrival of a destitute young girl on their doorstep brings them new hope for a better life. An enthralling tale of two families, The...

In 18th-century Scotland, Alexander, a doctor and poet, and his snobbish sister Susanna are desperate to advance their social standing. And while Susanna unwittingly gets herself involved in some truly terrifying situations as a result, Alexander concentrates on his ambition to be a famous poet. And he is surprised and delighted when he meets Robert Burns who is not only a great companion but also a poet like himself. They soon become close friends and Alexander loves him like a brother. But when the genius of Burns begins to completely overshadow Alexander's own poetry, their close friendship changes and there is a darkening of Alexander's heart. As well as a fast-paced and compelling narrative, Margaret Thomson Davis has seamlessly interwoven original songs, poems and letters by the bard into the story to produce a gripping tale of love, rivalry and ambition.

Goodmans of Glassford Street is the story of a successful but old-fashioned family department store and the lives and conflicts of the people who work in it, including the strong-willed matriarch Abigail Goodman. Douglas Benson, Abigail’s son-in-law, is determined to gain control of the store and completely modernise it. He becomes more and more ruthless and devious in his methods to oust Abigail but Abigail is determined to hold on to the business and keep it as it is. She and her late husband, Tom, had built the business up together. All her memories of her much-loved husband are tied up with the store. As the struggle for control of the store escalates, Abigail’s son John presents the family with another crisis. A serial killer is stalking the closes and wynds of Edinburgh and it looks like John may be a suspect. It’s a bitter blow to the Goodman family at an already uncertain time. Goodmans of Glassford Street is a powerful story of a family torn apart by...

The Breadmaker’s Saga follows the story of a Glasgow working class community living through the dark days of the Depression and the Second World War. Clydend, McNair’s Bakery and the surrounding tenements, are all vividly and absorbingly depicted, as are the lives and loves of people like Catriona, a young woman trying to cope with an overbearing husband; the foreman baker Baldy Fowler and his tragic wife, Sarah; Alec Jackson, the philandering insurance salesman; and a host of other colourful characters, who face up to the ordinary challenges of life and the extraordinary challenges of war with honesty, optimism and hope. ‘All human life is there, laughter and tears together.’ The Scotsman ‘Mrs Davis catches the time with honest-to-goodness certainty.’ The Guardian ‘Simply written with an exceptional quality of understatement, it wins instant sympathy.’ Glasgow Evening Citizen ‘A Glaswegian equivalent of Coronation Street.’...

With a handsome police officer for a husband and a brand new house in a quiet, secluded street bordering Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Mae Kelly appears to have it all. But appearances can be deceptive, and Mae soon finds the demands of living at 1 Waterside Way are more than she bargained for. Glasgow in the 1970s is also proving to be a challenging place to live for some of her neighbours. All Paul Brownlee and Clive Westley want to do is live together in peace but the spiteful Reverend Denby is determined to make sure that won’t happen in Waterside Way. Meantime, Charlotte Arlington-Jones and her friend Gemma Ford are bitterly opposed to having an Asian family on the street but when her own daughter falls in love with an Asian boy, prejudices on both sides will test everyone to the limit as families are torn apart. And down the road, Doris McIvor is struggling to care for her ailing mother and fears she may end up losing her own mind. As secrets are exposed and beliefs are...

In the summer of 1939, as the storm clouds of war gather over Glasgow, the Gourlays and the Cartwrights are preparing themselves for the challenges of an uncertain future. The hard working Gourlays in their modest tenement, and the prosperous Cartwrights in their luxurious West End home, are about to face the consequences of a shattering revelation. As the secrets and lies of the past are uncovered, these two very different families discover that they have far more in common than any of them ever suspected. But private conflicts and personal traumas are soon overshadowed by the tragedy of total war. Like thousands of others, the Gourlays and the Cartwrights experienced the full horror of the First World War. Now they must face that horror again – Richard Cartwright as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain; the Gourlay girls' husbands, Joe, Pete and Malcy, as ordinary soldiers caught up in the chaos of Dunkirk; and Virginia Cartwright as a Red Cross Nurse on the Home...

The New Breadmakers is the long-awaited sequel to Margaret Thomson Davis' bestselling saga The Breadmakers – her classic trilogy chronicling the life and times of a Glasgow working-class community during the 1930s and '40s. Having survived everything that the Depression and the Second World War has thrown at them, the people of McNair's bakery and the surrounding tenements are now facing an uncertain future. With the Coronation of 1953, a new age is beginning, and all is by no means well in the lives of the breadmakers. Catriona McNair's husband is making her life a misery and she decides to take drastic action; her friends Julie and Sammy have become involved in a search for a long-lost daughter; Alec Jackson, the happy-go-lucky reformed philanderer, finds himself caught up in one of Glasgow's worst tragedies; and the youngsters are challenging convention in the name of romance. The New Breadmakers is the wonderfully evocative story of these and a host of other colourful...

Set in a Glasgow high-rise, A Deadly Deception centres on Mabel Smith who lives alone in one of the flats. Her selfish parents had used Mabel as a slave and they effectively ruined her life but now they are both dead. Mabel is now getting older and her crippling arthritis means she can only hobble about with the help of her sticks. She feels terribly bitter and lonely. Then, one day, sitting in the doctor's waiting room flicking through a magazine, Mabel notices adverts for phone-sex. She is shocked and appalled but stuffs the magazine into her bag all the same. Later, she finds out how the system works and decides it could be an easy way to make some much-needed extra cash. A thirty-nine-year-old man called John begins phoning her. Mabel tells him her name is Angela and she and John gradually form a close and loving relationship. He, too, is lonely and bitter, after being cruelly deserted by his wife, and he soon becomes eager to find out everything about Angela, especially...

Beginning in Glasgow during the Jacobite Rising of 1745, The Tobacco Lords Trilogy is the epic story of two very different women – Annabelle Ramsay, the wilful and impetuous daughter of a rich Tobacco Lord, and Regina Chisholm, a child of the slums, born to a life of poverty and degradation yet determined to make something of herself. As the story unfolds, their lives and loves become tragically intertwined, and the two women become deadly enemies – rivals in an all-consuming passion that will last a lifetime and follow them from the streets of Glasgow to the shores of the New World and the splendour of colonial Williamsburg. A compelling story of romance and rivalry, The Tobacco Lords Trilogy is also a marvellous evocation of the city of Glasgow and its people in the 18th century – from the wealth and grandeur of the Tobacco Lords, the city's thriving merchants, to the poverty and desperation of the filthy, overcrowded tenements.

In the summer of 1914, as the storm clouds of war begin to gather over Europe, life in Glasgow goes on as normal – for the rich in their elegant mansions, and for the poor in the overcrowded tenements of the Gorbals. Up at Hilltop House, home of the wealthy Cartwright family, Virginia Watson is a kitchen maid whose life below stairs is an endless round of hardship and drudgery. Back in the Gorbals, her family are fighting a losing battle against unemployment, hunger and disease, while her father and brothers dream of the revolution that John Maclean and the 'Red Clydesiders' promise will be their salvation. Everything changes for Virginia after a chance meeting with Nicholas Cartwright, a dashing young army officer and heir to the Cartwright fortune. Defying all the conventions of the time, their illicit romance has hardly begun when war breaks out, and Nicholas leaves to face the horrors of the Western Front. A powerful tale of love and loss, The Clydesiders is a...

Red Alert is the story of the Price family and is set in a Glasgow fire station and in the world-famous Glasgow School of Art. Kirsty Price is a nice, ordinary girl and works in the fire station serving food and drink to the firefighters. She’s happy in her work and her life except for the fact that she’s also the daughter of Simon Price, an artist and tutor at the Glasgow School of Art. He is a notorious bully, both to his students and his family, including Kirsty and her brother Johnny who is plagued with ill-health. When Johnny starts hanging around with a dubious couple who work as croupiers in the local casino he accepts a job from them looking after their flat and Kirsty and her firefighter boyfriend, Greg McFarlane, start to worry about him. Then Greg phones to say that he has been attending a fatal road traffic accident and the car involved is Johnny’s. The family is devastated but soon after Johnny’s funeral, there’s a knock at the door and...

Set in Edinburgh and West Lothian at the end of the Victorian era, Light & Dark is the powerful story of the Blackwood family – Lorianna, a beautiful young woman, married at sixteen to a considerably older man; Gavin, her austere and sanctimonious husband; and Clementina, their wild and wayward daughter who grows up rebelling against everything her parents stand for. In their imposing mansion in the West Lothian countryside, the Blackwoods appear to live an affluent and normal family life. But beneath this veneer of respectability, things are not quite what they seem: Gavin Blackwood is a cruel man, driven by violent animal passions, who makes his wife and daughter's life a misery; Lorianna is secretly involved with another man; and the whole family is about to be engulfed in a dreadful tragedy that will overshadow the rest of their lives.

A powerful story of passion and rivalry set in early Victorian Glasgow, The Dark Side of Pleasure chronicles the rise and fall of two very different families, the Camerons - wealthy, respectable and secure, and the Gunnets - struggling to survive amid the desperate poverty of the slums. Alfred Cameron, the owner of a prosperous coaching firm, his wife Felicity and their beautiful daughter Augusta enjoy a life of privilege and luxury, surrounded by servants and the trappings of success. But the family firm is in danger - threatened by the encroaching railways, and undermined from within by one of their own coachmen, Luther Gunnet - a ruthlessly ambitious man who will do anything to raise his family from the slums. One disastrous, snow-swept night, a series of tragic events begins that will shatter the comfortable world of the Camerons, and bring about a spectacular reversal of fortune none of them could have imagined in their wildest dreams.