The next book is coming. The finishing touches are being applied and in the following week or so I’ll send it off for the editorial process. It’s like a trip to the book dentist: fill the plot cavities; extract unwanted chapters then give everything a quick polish. Painful but necessary.

Why the title? The short answer is you have to ask my publisher. The longer answer?

The story opens with a graveyard scene and it’s a motif that I return to several times throughout the book. I’ve chosen a song to sing at the graveside that has a resonance both within the story and yet also reaches beyond the pages, deep into Scottish history. Songs have that ability to time-travel; to take us back – sometimes to places we don’t want to visit or return to. That’s another aspect of this story but you’ll have to wait until next summer to find out.

Now the celestial clock approaches the witching hour, another year readies itself and we approach 2026 with all of our hopes and dreams. I’m not expecting to write another blog this side of 2025 so I’ll wish all my readers a very happy Christmas and a healthy, safe and wonderful 2026.