Book 29 - Star Gazing

Star Gazing by Linda Gillard - first published in 2008

Marianne Fraser has been blind since birth and she was widowed in her twenties when her husband was killed in the Piper Alpha Disaster.  She shares a flat in Edinburgh with her sister, who is an author.  One day by chance she meets Keir Hardy on the street outside her home.  They share a love of music and he takes her to stay in his remote cottage on the Isle of Skye near Broadford.  However Keir is a geophysicist and works on oil rigs and although she finds herself falling in love with him, Marianne is scared of getting too close to him in case she loses him too.  Then she discovers she is pregnant but decides not to tell Keir.  The story is a bit slow moving and towards the end I found Marianne's attitude to Keir very annoying. However there is a satisfactory outcome and Skye is described quite well. 6/10

Islands covered - Skye

 Broadford Harbour, Skye

Book 28 - Over the Sea to Skye

Over the Sea to Skye by Sally Stewart - first published in 2007

Don't expect this novel to change the way you view the world but it is an amiable enough story with a happy, if predictable ending.

Louise Maitland's brother and his wife are killed in a car accident leaving their young children - Jamie and Fiona as orphans.  Louise takes them to live with her father and rather austere aunt Janet in an old manse on the Sleat Peninsula of the Isle of Skye but then decides to stay and live there herself, rather than return to her life as a chef in London.  A Canadian Iain Macrae, whose ancestors left Skye several generations earlier, meets Louise and the children by chance on several occasions.  He falls in love with Louise but she rejects him.  Meanwhile a millionaire businessman wants to buy the manse, kirk and adjacent croft, demolish the buildings and redevelop the site into a holiday complex.  Iain comes up with a plan to stop him.  The Sleat Peninsula, the Cuillins, Skye Bridge and Portree all feature in the story.  6/10

Islands covered - Skye

 Skye Bridge from Kyleakin

 Portree Harbour

 The Cuillins from Kilmory on Rum