The Heather Hills of Stonewycke

Stonewycke Trilogy #1

by Michael R. Phillips, Judith Pella

Seventeen-year-old Maggie Duncan is torn between her obligations as a dutiful daughter and her hatred of her father’s cruel pursuit of money and power. But on the boundary between childhood and womanhood, Maggie discovers it is not her father who stands in the way of her happiness -- it is her own tightly held bitterness. Drawn to a man quietly struggling to overcome his past, Maggie must learn to let go of hatred and embrace divine love and forgiveness. In The Heather Hills of Stonewycke two best-selling authors begin a glorious series about hearts and minds being opened to God. Davina Porter’s wonderful narration captures all the sweep and grandeur of this panoramic saga.

Genres: Christian Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Christian, Romance, Historical, Scotland

520 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Librarian Note: there is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

Michael Phillips has been writing in the Christian marketplace for 30 years. All told, he has written, co-written, and edited some 110 books. Phillips and his wife live in the U.S., and make their second home in Scotland.

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library)]

A sweeping historical romance/drama that features great writing, an incredible story, and plenty of heart-tugging moments. Can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy!

[Gayle]

This was the first Michael Phillips book I ever read and I fell in love with his writing then and there. He writes in the style of Scottish theologian George MacDonald and I hunger for that wisdom combined with storytelling. I am a huge Michael Phillips fan and found that Lawana Blackwell has the same style of writing.

[Kaitlyn Krispense]

Let's take a poll: raise your hand if, when your second cousin comes for a visit for two months, youre going to fall in love with him and insist upon marrying him even when he's suspected of murder, bc it's not that you believe whether he's innocent or guilty, you just love him and that's that.

I'm sorry, what?!

[Blabby Gabi]

THIS IS SUCH A SAD TRILOGY WAAAAH
The ending is NOT what you want it to be!!! 😭😭😭 but it is amazing Scottish historical fiction! You get to grow up with Maggie and fall in love with gallant Ian:) And you urge them to escape faster and celebrate when they get married and then you get to cry when they get separated for LIKE 40 YEARS!!!!!!! WAAAAAAH!!!. yeah... great series thanks for RIPPING MY HEART OUT!
😂😂😂 Read only if you wish to cry some good tears or enjoy being exasperated with the author😂 I actually recommend it😂 it is a heart pumping adventure and I LOVE Scotland and the rich history in the series❤️ but... I do have to confess I never finished the trilogy after I found out that they get separated for 30-40 years.... I skipped and read the ending😂 and was completely shocked at how old they were when they were reunited! And they were only married for like a month before they were separated! 😭😭😭😭waaaah but she does have a daughter and her daughter gets married... it was just too sad for me😂

I will actually try to read it again sometime👍🏼

[Lora]

I probably shouldn't give stars to a book I couldn't finish, but since the star is singular, maybe that slips it under the radar. The fact is, I got the book from the library and read the back and was alarmed to see it described as having been written by a committee. Well, I tried it, I surely tried, and seven chapters in I gave up. The book appears to be old enough to be clean, but dang, it feels as if they tossed the words into the air and any that fell into any semblance of a sentence made the story. This book needs either a transfusion of real feeling or it needs to have the plug pulled once and for all.
Now, I shouldn't be so harsh, I know. But I have to record my experience here for myself so that I don't accidentally stumble across this book again and, not remembering it, waste time acquiring or reading it.
I wanted to just hit the 'x' and delete it from my shelves. But I need the reminder.
Minor spoilers ahead for anyone who reads this review as well as the book: poor little girl loses her horse to her father's greedy wheeling and dealing and sets up the rest of the book's conflict. I never had any sense that any of these characters actually knew each other. Or that Scotland even existed in any real sense.
I mean, they were all emotionally distant from one another but dang, I think they blindly auditioned for the book and never really hit it off as they were written in. Bland, banal, insipid, prosaic, and-and-the perspective shift from character to character in a chapter, which could work, did nothing but raise my hackles here. I can't waste my time with this.
I could say it would work for young readers who just want to consume books and don't care about depth, just as long as the youth in the story has a trial and adventure of whatever sort.
Even the religious overtones couldn't save this book for me. So sorry I started it, glad to move on.

[Carol]

I have been trying to read authors from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland and England. This book was recommended to me by Alice (thank you Alice!) I truly loved reading this book (in only 14 hours). We are planning a trip to the UK, and especially Scotland, since my husband is a golfer. I am now waiting for the next two books.

[Amanda]

I liked the premise... read loads of books like this when I was younger. I guess I felt the romance was a bit contrived... didn't buy their love and affection for each other. It just seems to have happened suddenly. We're told that their friendship grows into true, strong love, but we don't get to experience that with them. Not sure if I would bother reading the next in the series.

[Jeni Enjaian]

I read this book many years ago as either a middle schooler or underclassman in high school. I adored the book and entire series then. This remembered adoration helped me make the decision to skip these books when reading through my collection four years ago. I read many books by both of these authors since then and gradually became aware of the glaringly obvious shortcomings of their authorship. These shortcomings infected every book I read by them. I had no hope that these books would survive a second read. As I supposed, they did not. This book was absolutely terrible, overladen with gratuitous historical details (this means a great deal coming from someone as obsessed with history as I am) and absolutely paper-thin flat characters. I think it took me 30 minutes to read this book, not long at all.

[Karen]

This is a sweet coming of age story set in Scotland. The main character, Maggie, is a young, sheltered girl who lives in the country in the Stonewycke manor. Maggie's father is a distant, uncaring parent and is only interested in Maggie as a bargaining chip to sell the right to marry her to the highest bidder. Will Maggie be strong enough to stand up to her father and choose her own husband for love instead of money? It was certainly fun reading to see what would happen. I will definitely be reading the next book in the trilogy.

[Jenna Gareis]

Five things about The Heather Hills of Stonewycke by Michael Phillips and Judith Pella 5/5⭐️s

1. A perfect autumnal reread! It’s gothic, mysterious, romantic, uplifting. It’s set in Scotland and includes a feisty, intelligent, lovable, sympathetic heroine, a brave, endearingly trepidatious love interest, and a kick-a** mother on their side.
2. There’s mystery.
3. There’s integrity.
4. It’s set in the Scottish highlands.
5. I read this whole series as a teen and adored them. This is my first time reading them again since then and I’m so very pleased that I love them still.

[TiffanyLamp]

I tried to read this. I really did. Then, "romance" sets in, followed by all the really strange scenarios played out and I found myself saying to myself, "This is far too heavy for the likes of me."

If you're a hopeless romantic and regularly read any romance novel you can get your hands on, this is the book for you! If you are looking for depth, something more than "let's get married and run away together, guy", please pass.

[Laura]

I found this book outside a classroom in a book give away box. Understandably it was there. The writing is dated and formulaic. I think this series is out of print, and I don't plan on searching for the other two books. It does have the Gothic elements of creepy castle, evil father, and unsolved murder, but the story didn't keep me up at night.

[Loraine]

It was good enough that I am looking forward to reading the sequel. It has romance, mystery (a little) and historical fiction. The plot moved along well and was interesting. It wasn't your typical romance plot, so that was refreshing. It's obviously going to continue the story, it was left very unfinished.

[Lia]

Picked this up for a quarter at a used book sale and didn't really research past the tagline. It was alright, I typically dislike Christian romance books. The opening few chapters describing Stonewyke and the countryside were promising but the plot quickly devolved into simple, predictable soul searching. No plans on continuing with the trilogy.

[Jennifer Green brommet]

Loved this series too!

[Barbara]

....Disappointing from too many angles.

[James Catoe]

This is story is not holding my wife's or my interest, so thankfully we both have decided to read something else.

[Kari]

This was like a Scottish Downton Abbey with a bit of a Christian twist. I liked it!

[Anne Hamilton]

Maggie adores her father, James Duncan, but when she gives away her favourite horse - Cinder, gifted to her by the old groom Digory who received it as a tiny foal in payment from a farmer for saving its life - she begins to suspect that her father will stop at nothing to realise his ambitions. If he has to break her heart to buy the favour of a potential investor, he won't think twice.

Ruthless and manipulative, James has - unknown to her - pledged her in marriage to George Falkirk, the son of a neighbour. All to get Falkirk Senior to loan him money for his business ventures - money that is not forthcoming from his wife, Atlanta, who as the heiress to Stonewycke, holds the purse-strings to the estate. And who, as a wife who knows of her husband's adultery, is far from inclined to sign anything she thinks is a dubious or risky investment.

Maggie isn't aware of what her mother's cryptic comments about her inheritance really mean - her brother Alistair is not her mother's son but the product of her father's affair. When the mother died, Atlanta agreed to bring up Alistair as her own, but made sure there were provisions to secure the estate for Maggie.

George Falkirk is more than happy to court Maggie when he realises she is as beautiful as her inheritance is desirable... because what he really wants is a parcel of bleak wind-swept ridge where a Pictish treasure is rumoured to have been hidden millennia ago.

But into the well-laid plans of this group of greedy plotters rides Ian Duncan, distant cousin of James, who has been sent up from London - mostly to keep him out of jail. Cynical and full of self-deprecating humour, Ian - to his huge surprise - is awakened to nature and the needs of the poverty-stricken crofters of Port Strathy.

Maggie finds her own trust in men - destroyed by her father's various machinations - coming under challenge as she learns more about Ian. But nothing prepares either of them for the vicious revenge James sets in motion when he realises his plans are likely to be thwarted...

Old-fashioned in style - with moderate head-hopping into different characters' thoughts - the story-telling is nevertheless strong enough for the inconsistent point-of-view not to matter too much.

[Tracey Lynn]

3.5⭐️

[Lavins]

The little, thin story the book had, ended two thirds into the book. The rest was just....fillers.

[Christine Roberts]

Follow the legacy and tragedies of the Duncan family, heirs to the estate of Stonewycke in Scotland. When Lady Margaret Duncan is betrayed by her father, she vows never to forgive him. At 17, she is a dashing, beautiful young woman who, unbeknownst to her, is a part of her father's plan for expansion of the estate. But when Lady Maggie does not go along with her father's plans their beautiful world of Stonewycke is in danger of crashing down around them. Follow Maggie and her family on a three-volume journey from the heather hills of Scotland to the rugged American West in the tale of romance, mystery, betrayal, and family loyalty.

This really was a great series! Read all 3 books in one week. I believe there is a follow up series that I may just have to look into!

[Lynne Page]

I really wanted to like this book when I first picked it up. It had horses and castles and Scotland in it – all things that I love! I was even willing to overlook that it is a Christian romance, which is 100% not my type of book at all. But even that isn’t what makes me give this novel 2 stars.
It’s the writing that tears this book apart. And the absolute lack of research.

For instance – for a book that involves horses as much as it does, there is so much incorrect information in this novel. Misidentifying horse colours, claiming a 10 year old girl bomb-proof trained a mare to be the perfect ride at the horse’s age of 3 years old, and the unfortunate use of a thesaurus in order to use a varied, but incorrect, number of words to reference a stall. Words like compartment and cell. It’s a stall; call it a stall! It couldn’t have been that hard to find an expert on horses in the 80s to either ask questions or ask to review information. It’s books like these that make non-horse people think that ponies are baby horses. >_<

And sure, I can admit that most people won’t spot the incorrect facts because they’re not horse people, so who really cares? But it’s frustrating when an author can’t research a topic they decide is supposed to be important in the novel. Even if it wasn’t as simple as a Google search back in the 80s, some effort should have been made. And oh my goodness, stay away from the thesaurus!!

Another obvious lack of research was in calling the heather useless but pretty (I paraphrase here). Heather isn’t useless at all. Heather is food for the sheep that the Scots were clearly caring for in the book. It’s also used in teas, syrups, and medicines. A simple trip to a library to look up the wildflowers of Scotland would have helped the authors learn a thing or two about the flower.

A third lack of research comes in the reference of Brahms’ Lullaby. The authors have plainly given us a time frame of the early 1860s, but make a reference to Brahms’ Lullaby dating back to hearing it in 1851… when the song hadn’t been published until 1868. Again, this is such a simple thing to find an answer to. And when one of the authors boasts of writing historical books, you’d think they wouldn’t get a fact like this so incredibly wrong.

I’d be more upset about the inconsistencies of the ages of people in relationships, but I assume that’s done because the author was trying to keep the book friendly for Christian values of the 1980s, not the 1860s.

However, another thing I found impossible to get around was the continuous difference in language between the nobility and the commoners. I get the authors was trying to show the differences between the two classes, but the amount of effort they put toward writing the poor Scots accent as phonetic as possible was incredibly distracting when the main (and well to do) characters talked like 1980s Americans. Add a little bit of inflection here and there, sure. But the constant apostrophes and “oot” instead of “out”, etc, etc, greatly distracted from my reading enjoyment.

And let’s not forget how immature all of the social dialogue *feels*. Every time there’s an argument, it’s like two six year olds yelling at each other. It’s unbelievable, and makes all of the characters feel far too immature for the lives the authors have given them.

To wrap up – this book is just a horrible bore to read and drove me batty with all of its inconsistencies and distractions. This is not worth reading, not even if you’re looking for a Christian romance novel.

[Ebookwormy1]

In a difficult season and desiring an easy read, I decided to pick up this title that I thoroughly enjoyed in my childhood. For three decades this book has been with me, but unlike Anne of Green Gables, Little Women and the many series of Bodie Thoene, which I regularly cycle through, I haven't read these in years. The time of reckoning had arrived. Did I still enjoy it enough to preserve it's place on the shelf? Or had it's time passed with my youth? I think you can probably tell by the star rating what I discovered.

Why? While Scotland is well contemplated, the characters are weakly drawn. Much of their simplistic backstory is reviewed ad nauseum - yes, we get it that such and such family conflict happened and so and so cannot get over it. Yes, we know he is the bad guy with the evil heart. Yes, we know he is the faithful servant of pure heart, but when he is beaten, we cannot pause the plot to even find out what has happened to him - thus he is only used to show us the bad guy with the evil heart, not really a CHARACTER in and of himself.

The development our characters are supposed to experience during the story seems simultaneously forced and insincere. Oh, they are in love now? In the greatest, purest, most lovely love? While the plot line pointed to it, the discovery by our characters seems unrealistic and false.

Finally, the plotting is rather slow initially, and then about half way through, it begins to employ a series of predictable cliches at a galloping pace. The deranged father, the evil suitor, the double crossing thieves, the star crossed lovers, etc. And the plot points throughout seemed forced and unclear. So, wait, why do they have to flee? If the father cannot separate them now that they are married, yet they all fear the young couple being separated? Much of it seemed dramatic for the sake of drama.

And yet, weak writing and poor plotting aside, I cannot say this book is any worse than the Sweet Valley High series that I also read (looks down in embarrassment). So, perhaps if you have an avid reading middle school girl (as I was) this book is an appropriate title to give her. Sure, it's not the best, but it's not HARMFUL and makes a good ride for a young person with time and reading appetite to charge through and then forget. :) And perhaps, were I raising girls, I would retain it for such an experience, but I don't think it will hold the attention of my boys.

I will still have to complete this trilogy and the one following, for old times sake, but at this point, I think it may be a goodbye tour.

Flight from Stonewycke (Stonewycke #2), Phillips & Pella, 1983
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Stories of my youth that continue to feed my heart...

Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery, 1908
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Little Women, Alcott, 1868
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Vienne Prelude (Zion Covenant #1), Thoene, 1989
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Lyndalou]

Seventeen-year-old Maggie Duncan is torn between her obligations as a dutiful daughter and her hatred of her father’s cruel pursuit of money and power. But on the boundary between childhood and womanhood, Maggie discovers it is not her father who stands in the way of her happiness -- it is her own tightly held bitterness. Drawn to a man quietly struggling to overcome his past, Maggie must learn to let go of hatred and embrace divine love and forgiveness. In The Heather Hills of Stonewycke two best-selling authors begin a glorious series about hearts and minds being opened to God. Davina Porter’s wonderful narration captures all the sweep and grandeur of this panoramic saga.

[Danielle]

This was another light read, something easy to listen to while doing other things. As it turns out, this is book 1 of 3 and the NetLibrary doesn't have the other 2 so I'll be wondering how it ends up for awhile I guess. I'm not too concerned about it because I'm not all that interested in the characters, save the herione, and I'll venture a guess that she ends up all right in the end ;-)

[Shelli]

This book was okay. It went a little slow for me. I wish we could have see a little bit more of how Maggie's and Ians relationship developed into love, but it was a clean interesting story. It goes to show how important a father/daughter relationship is. I will wait awhile before I continue the story.

[Stelepami]

Pleasant enough, though not what I thought it would be. For some reason I had thought that it was set in the 1950s or later. No matter, it was enjoyable, if a bit preachy here and there. I would listen to more if the library had them, but I don't think it does. I might read them eventually, but it's not a priority.

[Lori]

I enjoyed both the writing style and characters in this book. I was looking for a light read where I wasn't required to figure out loose connections and subtle leads. This was perfect! It was a predictable Christian historical fiction romance. So, if you are looking for a book with a surprise ending look elsewhere.

[Kirsten]

Great first book to this series, very clean. I listened to the recorded books version with Davina Porter at the reader. I love her readings and that is how I found this series. I also love stories set in Scotland, they always win me over.