Shadows of Scartongarth

by Catherine M. Byrne

Love, loyalty, and revenge collide in this powerful tale of resilience against all odds.
As an island nurse during WW2, Annie Reid dreams of reclaiming her family’s stolen inheritance and providing a future for her son, born out of wedlock.
Her close friend, Magnus, offers her marriage and a secure future.
Her heart, however, belongs to her first love, Alexander Garcia, who left years ago to fight in his native Spain.
Now a war correspondent, Alexander's path leads him through the horrors of World War II, finally trapping him in a Japanese POW camp. Dreams of the lovely young island girl who won his heart all those years ago, keep him going in his darkest hours.
As Alexander endures unimaginable hardship thousands of miles away, Annie faces her own battle at home—a trial of survival, reputation, and hope, as a bitter feud turns deadly.

309 pages, Paperback

Published January 10, 2025

About the author

Catherine Byrne always wanted to be a writer. She began at the age of eight by drawing comic strips with added dialogue and later, as a teenager, graduated to poetry. Her professional life, however, took a very different path. She first studied glass engraving with Caithness Glass where she worked for fourteen years. During that time, she also worked as a foster parent. After the birth of her youngest child, she changed direction, studying and becoming a chiropodist with her private practice. At the same time, she did all the administration work for her husband's two businesses, and this continued until the death of her husband in 2005. However, she still maintained her love of writing and has had several short stories published in women's magazines. Her main ambition was to write novels and she has now retired to write full time.

Born and brought up until the age of nine on the Island of Stroma, she heard many stories from her grandparents about the island life of a different generation. Her family moved to the mainland at a time when the island was being depopulated, although it took another ten years before the last family left.
An interest in geology, history and her strong ties to island life have influenced her choice of genre for her novels.

Since first attending the AGM of the Scottish Association of Writers in 1999, she has won several prizes, and commendations and has been short-listed both for short stories and chapters of her novel. In 2009, she won second prize in the general novel category for ‘Follow The Dove’ and has since written four more novels in the series, The Broken Horizon, The Road to Nowhere, Isa’s Daughter, Mary Rosie’s War and, finally, Shadows of Scartongarth. She has attended an Arvon Foundation course and a Hi-Arts writing program, receiving positive feedback on her work from both.
Her Mother's family tree inspired her first series, and her father's family inspired her second, which starts in Ireland during the Great Famine.

Catherine Byrne lives in Wick, Caithness.