Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig is a great read. The setting is mainly Edinburgh or as it is written ‘Embra’ and St Andrews in Fife. It begins in 1574, the hardline Calvinist John Knox is dead and the woman that he despised, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots has left Scotland, but it’s feared (or hoped depending on which side you are on) that she will be back with a French army to help her.

William Fowler lives with his parents in Anchor Close, Edinburgh, but his father is killed in the close when he goes out to see what all the noise in the street is about. It doesn’t change the plans for William though, he is sent to St Andrews University, while his mother takes over the running of the family business – moneylending. William discovered that he could help her by putting some business her way. St Andrews Cathedral is already a ruin after John Knox and his followers had wrecked the place years before. What had been a well-off Catholic institution, because of the pilgrims that had brought money into the place in the past is now a poverty-stricken small town with teachers being almost as poor as the students, the locals are mainly involved in the fishing industry, and it’s a fishing family that Rose Nicolson belongs to.

William had seen her when she was busy mending fishing nets and had completely fallen for her, it turns out that she’s his best friend’s sister, and like his own family the parents had had religious differences.

Will’s mother is involved in a plot to have the Catholic religion reinstated. The Scottish Reformation has introduced a much more unforgiving version of Christianity and there are those that think that it was much more fun when you could sin and then confess and be forgiven. There’s no such fun with Knox and Calvinism, where just about everything leads to hellfire!

Anyway, this is a great read, the locations are all so well-known to me and that always adds to the experience. I intend to take some photos of some of the locations, including the martyr locations in St Andrews which have their initials on the ground where they were burnt. Meanwhile you can see some photos of Anchor Close here.

This book’s plot didn’t go the way I had expected it to, there was a good twist at the end which I did half guess, but I really enjoyed the character of Walter Scott, who was an ancestor of Sir Walter Scott the author, he was apparently very proud of being a descendent of this Border reiver. Scott would have loved this book, as I did.

Jack read it after I did and if you want to read his much more detailed review and thoughts you can have a look at it here.