Rose Nicolson: A Novel

"Rose Nicolson is a terrific historical adventure story in the grand old tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott himself. We couldn’t resist its sheer gusto—the mad dashes down the murky wynds of sixteenth-century Edinburgh, the icy blasts of wind against the granite walls of St Andrews, the thrill of a reiver raid across the border. Andrew Greig brings his characters brilliantly to life: the drooling James VI, the peacock courtier Esmé Stewart, and William Fowler, the main character himself, with all his doubts and fears, his strengths and endearing failings. Isn’t this the key question at the heart of historical fiction? Why read a novel when you can read a history book? Surely the answer is that the historian describes a historical personage or period from the outside, being cautious with what isn’t fully known from the record. The novelist takes you directly into the mind and heart of a person from time past, so that you see through their eyes, feel as they feel, and the pieces of the historical jigsaw fall into place around you."