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Stone Lands: A Journey of Darkness and Light Through Britain’s Ancient Places
Journeying across Britain, from West Penwith and Avebury to the Lake District and Orkney, Stone Lands uncovers the magic and rich history of our incredible prehistoric standing stones. It conveys the delight that lies in tracking them down, as well as the solace these ancient places offer in times of darkness.
A few months after discovering that her beloved husband, Stephen, had incurable cancer, Fiona Robertson began to write this book. A long-time megalith enthusiast, she found the ancient stones resonated with her more profoundly than ever as she faced the prospect of losing him. Set upright thousands of years ago, the megaliths are symbols of endurance and survival, standing in contrast to our ephemeral human lives. Infused with folklore, legend and mystery, they enchant the landscape and bring magic to our modern world.
A few months after discovering that her beloved husband, Stephen, had incurable cancer, Fiona Robertson began to write this book. A long-time megalith enthusiast, she found the ancient stones resonated with her more profoundly than ever as she faced the prospect of losing him. Set upright thousands of years ago, the megaliths are symbols of endurance and survival, standing in contrast to our ephemeral human lives. Infused with folklore, legend and mystery, they enchant the landscape and bring magic to our modern world.
416 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
May 23, 2026
Fiona Robertson made me feel things against my will. So, if you are looking at picking up Stone Lands because you think you are just going to learn about some old rocks, then you are warned. Have the tissues handy. Robertson is not messing around.
There are two things going on in Stone Lands. First, Robertson loves prehistoric standing stones. For those of us who didn't know (like me), Stonehenge is not a one-and-done thing. There are a ton of standing stones all over England. Robertson is an enthusiast and is going to tell you some super cool facts. So far, so good. Nothing to be worried about here.
Well, this book starts right around the time Robertson's husband, Stephen, is diagnosed with an incurable cancer. They have two kids. The impetus for this book is that Stephen is not about to lock himself in a room while everyone is sad. Instead, he wants to keep up with the rock hunting, mostly while he checks out some birds. This kind of nerdy family is so close to my own dorky heart.
The book slowly weaves the two stories together. A little bit on seeing a new stone site, juxtaposed with Stephen being a little less mobile and energetic each time. Yeah, metaphors abound. The seemingly infinite lives of standing stones against the ticking clock of a human life. Are you scared by how emotional this book will be? Because I for d@mn sure should have been!
Anyway, this is excellent, and you should read it. Now I have to get out of this dusty room.
(This book was provided as a review copy by Pegasus Books.)
There are two things going on in Stone Lands. First, Robertson loves prehistoric standing stones. For those of us who didn't know (like me), Stonehenge is not a one-and-done thing. There are a ton of standing stones all over England. Robertson is an enthusiast and is going to tell you some super cool facts. So far, so good. Nothing to be worried about here.
Well, this book starts right around the time Robertson's husband, Stephen, is diagnosed with an incurable cancer. They have two kids. The impetus for this book is that Stephen is not about to lock himself in a room while everyone is sad. Instead, he wants to keep up with the rock hunting, mostly while he checks out some birds. This kind of nerdy family is so close to my own dorky heart.
The book slowly weaves the two stories together. A little bit on seeing a new stone site, juxtaposed with Stephen being a little less mobile and energetic each time. Yeah, metaphors abound. The seemingly infinite lives of standing stones against the ticking clock of a human life. Are you scared by how emotional this book will be? Because I for d@mn sure should have been!
Anyway, this is excellent, and you should read it. Now I have to get out of this dusty room.
(This book was provided as a review copy by Pegasus Books.)
July 1, 2025
A beautiful, extremely well-researched and ultimately loving account of our relationships with ancient stones and one another. Much more than just a gazetteer of our ancient sites, this is a life affirming tale that reaches out between the ages and connects us to those people who first raised the stones. Heartbreaking, yet funny and inspiring. And I added many new places to my visit list. Wonderful.
May 20, 2026
Fiona Robertson’s, Stone Lands feels like a journey through darkness and light, across Britain’s ancient places and through the landscapes of memory itself. It is part travel writing, part meditation on myth, prehistory, and what it means to be human in a world that is always changing.
Again and again, Robertson returns to the feeling that “there is much wonder in the world.” The standing stones: circles, cairns, barrows, and ancient places remind us that the past is never truly gone. These monuments still stand quietly among us, carrying echoes of lives we can never fully understand. “Why was that particular stone chosen?”What stories, beliefs, fears, or hopes once gathered around it? The mystery remains, and perhaps that is part of their power.
Robertson beautifully captures how prehistoric stones seem tied to the endless “Dance between darkness and light,” the turning of seasons, the movement of planets, and the cycles within our own lives. In a prehistoric world without written records, these monuments set in stone what otherwise might have vanished completely: traces of shared communities, rituals, belonging, identity and meaning.
What moved me most was the sense that these ancient places offer an escape from everyday concerns and modern noise. They reconnect us with mythic landscapes filled with legends, fables, and sacred imagination. Even though we can never truly know what these sites meant to the people who built them, they still speak to us today.
The book also quietly reminds us that our own lives are fragile, subject to “change, decay, and loss.” At any moment, “The illusion of stability can shatter.” Yet the stones endure, even if they too are weathered by time. They become metaphors for “strength, endurance, and hope,” and perhaps the very best qualities of humankind: the desire to create meaning that lasts beyond ourselves.
Stone Lands, left me feeling inspired to look at the world differently, with more mystery, reverence, and gratitude and an awareness of how easily the world can be re-seen with a sense of wonder.
Again and again, Robertson returns to the feeling that “there is much wonder in the world.” The standing stones: circles, cairns, barrows, and ancient places remind us that the past is never truly gone. These monuments still stand quietly among us, carrying echoes of lives we can never fully understand. “Why was that particular stone chosen?”What stories, beliefs, fears, or hopes once gathered around it? The mystery remains, and perhaps that is part of their power.
Robertson beautifully captures how prehistoric stones seem tied to the endless “Dance between darkness and light,” the turning of seasons, the movement of planets, and the cycles within our own lives. In a prehistoric world without written records, these monuments set in stone what otherwise might have vanished completely: traces of shared communities, rituals, belonging, identity and meaning.
What moved me most was the sense that these ancient places offer an escape from everyday concerns and modern noise. They reconnect us with mythic landscapes filled with legends, fables, and sacred imagination. Even though we can never truly know what these sites meant to the people who built them, they still speak to us today.
The book also quietly reminds us that our own lives are fragile, subject to “change, decay, and loss.” At any moment, “The illusion of stability can shatter.” Yet the stones endure, even if they too are weathered by time. They become metaphors for “strength, endurance, and hope,” and perhaps the very best qualities of humankind: the desire to create meaning that lasts beyond ourselves.
Stone Lands, left me feeling inspired to look at the world differently, with more mystery, reverence, and gratitude and an awareness of how easily the world can be re-seen with a sense of wonder.
January 21, 2026
I loved this - gorgeous book and beautifully read as an audiobook. I’ve been savouring listening to this and it doesn’t disappoint - lots of favourite places featured (The Rollrights, Stonehenge, Isles of Scilly and Penwith) and lots of new places to visit (Orkney looking at you!). It’s been a great comfort listen and I’ve also bought the hardback too as it’s got beautiful illustrations.
May 12, 2026
„Stone Lands“ von Fiona Robertson hat mich tief berührt – ich hätte nie gedacht, dass ein Buch über Steine mich so mitnehmen könnte. Fiona schreibt unglaublich gefühlvoll, und gleichzeitig sind die Fakten zu den Steinen wunderbar und sorgfältig recherchiert. Man spürt in jedem Satz ihre Liebe zu den Steinen und gleichzeitig zu ihrer Familie.
Besonders beeindruckend und herzzerreißns ist die Art, wie sie die Krankheit ihres Ehemannes einbettet: so ehrlich und berührend, dass einem ab und zu wirklich die Tränen kamen. Insgesamt ist es ein wunderschönes Buch, das man zwar nicht in einem Rutsch lesen kann, das man aber immer wieder gerne zur Hand nimmt.
Vielen Dank an die Autorin, den Verlag und NetGalley für das Rezensionsexemplar.
#StoneLands #NetGalley #aufbauverlage
Besonders beeindruckend und herzzerreißns ist die Art, wie sie die Krankheit ihres Ehemannes einbettet: so ehrlich und berührend, dass einem ab und zu wirklich die Tränen kamen. Insgesamt ist es ein wunderschönes Buch, das man zwar nicht in einem Rutsch lesen kann, das man aber immer wieder gerne zur Hand nimmt.
Vielen Dank an die Autorin, den Verlag und NetGalley für das Rezensionsexemplar.
#StoneLands #NetGalley #aufbauverlage
August 27, 2025
I wanted to like this book. I do like this book but for me it's left me unfulfilled. I'd read the pre publication reviews and thought, being interested in ancient sites, this could offer something new. However I began finding myself speed reading chapters to get beyond the mindfulness and emotional suggestions, to unearth the discovery and fact. There's no doubt this is a well researched book, there's no doubt about Robertson's love of the topic, but like many books published today it majors on a personal warts and all journey with the subject being of secondary merit. Of this genera it does a wonderful job. But for me I had hoped for more. I'm not sure what that more was meant to be, maybe I'd misunderstood the premise but having stopped reading it properly and skimmed through it over two nights to the end I struggled to fully engage with it or the many people mentioned who 'deeply connect' with the mystery of ancient stones, searching for something of fulfillment in these modern times.
August 6, 2025
Poignant, lyrical, moving and thought-provoking. Also packed with information on ancient places and stone circles. Couldn’t recommend it more highly.
April 1, 2026
Much more about grief, and less about stones, than anticipated, beautifully interwoven and harrowing but hopeful.
October 9, 2025
The first half of Fiona’s book is a very moving record of her partner’s, Stephen’s, incurable cancer diagnosis intertwined with recollections of the various trips to megalithic stone structures in Britain which they had made. The writing can be powerful, reflecting a personal, subjective response to Stephen’s illness and death, and to visiting megaliths sites.
For me, from Chapter 7 (following Stephen’s death) the book seems to struggle to find a focus, with a record of more visits to megalithic stone structures, both those previously visited and some which were on a wishlist which were tragically never achieved with Stephen. Nevertheless I found this half of the book engaging and informative.
Loved the illustrations by Philip Harris, which added to the book, and the occasional brief plans of megalithic sites.
For me, from Chapter 7 (following Stephen’s death) the book seems to struggle to find a focus, with a record of more visits to megalithic stone structures, both those previously visited and some which were on a wishlist which were tragically never achieved with Stephen. Nevertheless I found this half of the book engaging and informative.
Loved the illustrations by Philip Harris, which added to the book, and the occasional brief plans of megalithic sites.
June 25, 2025
A moving and spiritual book. A story of coping with grief and loss through the ever present magic of ancient stones
January 18, 2026
I bought this book last year at an independent bookshop in Frome. It’s part personal memoir of the author’s lifetime of being an enthusiastic ancient ‘stone botherer’ but also of her experience of living through her husband Stephen’s terminal cancer diagnosis and his subsequent death, when he was only in his mid 50s leaving her with young children. It’s also a tribute to the UK’s prehistoric standing stones, circles and the landscapes within which they are set. It takes the form of a travelogue to some of the UKs most important Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites. The author had visited some of these sites with her husband before his diagnosis so they held happy memories for her: others she visited for the first time after his death as part of the process of rebuilding her life.
She writes movingly of her experience of supporting Stephen at the end of his life and she writes about her grief and the impact of this on her children - ‘without Stephen’ she writes ‘I’m a stranger in my own life and the things we do seem empty and meaningless’. Later she writes of the ways she found to regain a joy in living in part by interacting again with the ancient stone sites. She speaks of the many different ways these sites are significant to so many people and explains the personal messages she’s drawn from them. ‘Standing stones tell us that the past echos on and that memory is stronger than death. They remind us that the past is still with us, and that every awesome thing we have experienced, all the love we have given and received, is preserved in our past and cannot be taken away from us’.
I’m glad I treated myself to the hardback edition of the book: it has beautiful line drawing illustrations by printmaker Philip Harris. I’ll definitely be re-reading this book at some point and hopefully visiting some of the sites she mentions. I’d recommend it for someone who has been bereaved tough it can be a tough read at times as she does very bravely write about the end of her husband’s life. Overall it’s interesting on the history and archaeology of the Neolithic sites she visits, with a positive message of hope and her reconnection to life to help heal after loss. As one reviewer, Ben Edge put it ‘ the book shows us the power of looking back in order to move forward’ but as the author makes clear, our lost loved ones go forward with us.
She writes movingly of her experience of supporting Stephen at the end of his life and she writes about her grief and the impact of this on her children - ‘without Stephen’ she writes ‘I’m a stranger in my own life and the things we do seem empty and meaningless’. Later she writes of the ways she found to regain a joy in living in part by interacting again with the ancient stone sites. She speaks of the many different ways these sites are significant to so many people and explains the personal messages she’s drawn from them. ‘Standing stones tell us that the past echos on and that memory is stronger than death. They remind us that the past is still with us, and that every awesome thing we have experienced, all the love we have given and received, is preserved in our past and cannot be taken away from us’.
I’m glad I treated myself to the hardback edition of the book: it has beautiful line drawing illustrations by printmaker Philip Harris. I’ll definitely be re-reading this book at some point and hopefully visiting some of the sites she mentions. I’d recommend it for someone who has been bereaved tough it can be a tough read at times as she does very bravely write about the end of her husband’s life. Overall it’s interesting on the history and archaeology of the Neolithic sites she visits, with a positive message of hope and her reconnection to life to help heal after loss. As one reviewer, Ben Edge put it ‘ the book shows us the power of looking back in order to move forward’ but as the author makes clear, our lost loved ones go forward with us.
January 7, 2026
Stone Lands is a book of quiet power one that listens carefully to the land, to history, and to grief. Fiona Robertson’s journey across Britain’s prehistoric stone sites becomes something far deeper than travel or archaeology; it is a meditation on endurance, loss, and the fragile beauty of being alive.
Written in the shadow of her husband Stephen’s terminal diagnosis, this book carries grief with remarkable gentleness. The standing stones at West Penwith, Avebury, the Lake District, Orkney, and beyond are not treated as static monuments but as living presences. Raised thousands of years ago, they embody continuity and survival, offering a counterpoint to the brevity and vulnerability of human life.
Robertson writes with clarity and reverence, weaving together folklore, archaeology, landscape, and personal reflection. Her long-standing passion for megaliths deepens into something more intimate as she walks, researches, and returns again and again to these ancient places during a period of profound emotional reckoning. The stones become companions, witnesses, and anchors sources of solace without false comfort.
What makes Stone Lands especially compelling is its balance. It never romanticizes grief, nor does it retreat into sentimentality. Instead, it affirms joy, curiosity, and wonder even in the presence of sorrow. The result is a memoir that feels grounded and expansive at once deeply personal, yet resonant far beyond the author’s own experience.
The inclusion of Philip Harris’s black and white illustrations adds another layer of quiet beauty, reinforcing the book’s sense of attentiveness and care. Together, text and image create a work that invites slow reading and reflection.
Stone Lands is a luminous exploration of ancient landscapes and modern loss, reminding us that while human lives are fleeting, meaning can be found in connection to place, to history, and to one another. It will resonate strongly with readers of nature writing, archaeology, memoir, and anyone seeking solace in the enduring presence of the past.
Written in the shadow of her husband Stephen’s terminal diagnosis, this book carries grief with remarkable gentleness. The standing stones at West Penwith, Avebury, the Lake District, Orkney, and beyond are not treated as static monuments but as living presences. Raised thousands of years ago, they embody continuity and survival, offering a counterpoint to the brevity and vulnerability of human life.
Robertson writes with clarity and reverence, weaving together folklore, archaeology, landscape, and personal reflection. Her long-standing passion for megaliths deepens into something more intimate as she walks, researches, and returns again and again to these ancient places during a period of profound emotional reckoning. The stones become companions, witnesses, and anchors sources of solace without false comfort.
What makes Stone Lands especially compelling is its balance. It never romanticizes grief, nor does it retreat into sentimentality. Instead, it affirms joy, curiosity, and wonder even in the presence of sorrow. The result is a memoir that feels grounded and expansive at once deeply personal, yet resonant far beyond the author’s own experience.
The inclusion of Philip Harris’s black and white illustrations adds another layer of quiet beauty, reinforcing the book’s sense of attentiveness and care. Together, text and image create a work that invites slow reading and reflection.
Stone Lands is a luminous exploration of ancient landscapes and modern loss, reminding us that while human lives are fleeting, meaning can be found in connection to place, to history, and to one another. It will resonate strongly with readers of nature writing, archaeology, memoir, and anyone seeking solace in the enduring presence of the past.
December 11, 2025
Stone Lands” by Fiona Robertson is an exquisitely rendered memoir that blends personal grief, ancient history, and the quiet magic of the British landscape into a single luminous journey. With poetic sensitivity and profound emotional honesty, Robertson invites the reader into a world where standing stones become companions, witnesses, and spiritual anchors during one of the darkest chapters of her life.
As she travels across Britain, from the windswept cliffs of West Penwith to the mystical rings of Avebury, the rugged peaks of the Lake District, and the timeless majesty of Orkney, Robertson reveals how prehistoric megaliths hold not just historical significance, but healing power. These ancient stones, weathered by millennia yet steadfast, offer a grounding presence as she faces the unbearable reality of her husband Stephen’s terminal illness. In their resilience, she discovers a living metaphor for endurance, hope, and the stubborn beauty of life.
Rich with folklore, legend, and archaeological insight, the book is both an evocative travel narrative and a deeply personal exploration of love, loss, and renewal. Robertson’s prose is tender and clear eyed, capturing the wonder of landscapes where myth and memory converge. She transforms her pain into something radiant, an homage not only to the stones, but to the human spirit’s extraordinary ability to seek light in the shadows.
“Stone Lands” is enthralling, restorative, and quietly transformative, a memoir that lingers long after the final page and reminds us that even in grief, there is ancient magic waiting to guide us home.
As she travels across Britain, from the windswept cliffs of West Penwith to the mystical rings of Avebury, the rugged peaks of the Lake District, and the timeless majesty of Orkney, Robertson reveals how prehistoric megaliths hold not just historical significance, but healing power. These ancient stones, weathered by millennia yet steadfast, offer a grounding presence as she faces the unbearable reality of her husband Stephen’s terminal illness. In their resilience, she discovers a living metaphor for endurance, hope, and the stubborn beauty of life.
Rich with folklore, legend, and archaeological insight, the book is both an evocative travel narrative and a deeply personal exploration of love, loss, and renewal. Robertson’s prose is tender and clear eyed, capturing the wonder of landscapes where myth and memory converge. She transforms her pain into something radiant, an homage not only to the stones, but to the human spirit’s extraordinary ability to seek light in the shadows.
“Stone Lands” is enthralling, restorative, and quietly transformative, a memoir that lingers long after the final page and reminds us that even in grief, there is ancient magic waiting to guide us home.
December 28, 2025
This book wasn't what I was expecting but it was more poignant and thought-provoking than I had anticipated, the ideas raised staying with me after I finished each chapter.
I read this slowly over many months and it brought back so many memories of my own adventures with stones, and my own experience of loss. The author tells the hearbreaking story of the death of her husband and her struggles to cope with his terminal diagnosis and dealing with the aftermath.
The longevity of these great stone megaliths in the landscape and their part in celebrations of ancient rituals marking the passage of the year, help the author to work through her feelings and see the greater patterns we all live within.
I read this slowly over many months and it brought back so many memories of my own adventures with stones, and my own experience of loss. The author tells the hearbreaking story of the death of her husband and her struggles to cope with his terminal diagnosis and dealing with the aftermath.
The longevity of these great stone megaliths in the landscape and their part in celebrations of ancient rituals marking the passage of the year, help the author to work through her feelings and see the greater patterns we all live within.
March 1, 2026
I struggled at first to read this book. Read 100 pages and gave up.
Have myself 4 weeks and began again.
It was a hard winter and I was soul deep sad all through Yule.
Dear friends were journeying through their cancer treatments so did I really want to read a book that was full of heartbreaking memories of a Beloved?
I’m really glad did.
This is a thoroughly researched book but more than that, there is real beauty crafted with the stories of personal pilgrimages to the ancient Stones of UK.
Timelines cross and weave past and present into a book written in honour of a Beloved lost and Megaliths found.
I hope the Author has found a kind of Peace as she journeyed, that Granite and Quartz, Circles and Barrows, Avenues and Rows, have become a Sanctuary and a Love Song to her Stephen.
Have myself 4 weeks and began again.
It was a hard winter and I was soul deep sad all through Yule.
Dear friends were journeying through their cancer treatments so did I really want to read a book that was full of heartbreaking memories of a Beloved?
I’m really glad did.
This is a thoroughly researched book but more than that, there is real beauty crafted with the stories of personal pilgrimages to the ancient Stones of UK.
Timelines cross and weave past and present into a book written in honour of a Beloved lost and Megaliths found.
I hope the Author has found a kind of Peace as she journeyed, that Granite and Quartz, Circles and Barrows, Avenues and Rows, have become a Sanctuary and a Love Song to her Stephen.
July 31, 2025
Borrowed from the library.
There is a lot to learn here about Britain’s standing stones, megaliths, cairns, burial mounds, and stone circles. It is very clear, the author loves all of these and is drawn to them. However, it is also a personal love story, and a tale of fear, uncertainty, hope, and loss. Writing the book was the author’s way, at first, to distract herself from her husband’s grim diagnosis of incurable cancer, but eventually became the way she worked through her grief. Her great love is everywhere, but also nowhere. She is a brave woman, but she also sets a good example of following our personal passions and living life while we still can.
There is a lot to learn here about Britain’s standing stones, megaliths, cairns, burial mounds, and stone circles. It is very clear, the author loves all of these and is drawn to them. However, it is also a personal love story, and a tale of fear, uncertainty, hope, and loss. Writing the book was the author’s way, at first, to distract herself from her husband’s grim diagnosis of incurable cancer, but eventually became the way she worked through her grief. Her great love is everywhere, but also nowhere. She is a brave woman, but she also sets a good example of following our personal passions and living life while we still can.
April 28, 2026
Incredible. This is a lovely lovely book, part travelogue and part memoir of grief. The author’s husband has cancer, and each of the chapters describes the search for the stones, the location and experience of finding them, and the memory of the visit, whether it is before, during or after his diagnosis and death. While the topic is sad, it also allows the reader to view the stones as witnesses to human life in all its phases, which is, as far as we know, the point of these ancient monuments. The book is really well written, not maudlin, not dismissive, but honest in its suffering and aftermath of the cancer yet quite instructive about the stones at the same time
October 6, 2025
I saw a review of this book somewhere and picked it up on a whim. I’m so glad I did. I have learnt so much about the ancient megaliths and burial places that surround us here in the UK, but not in a dry text, but brought alive as a shared experience. There are undoubtedly moments in this book that will make you sad, the journey through a terminal diagnosis, but then the life that she found on the other side of her husband’s death gives some hope. It changed her, and in some ways improved her. It’s a reminder to live every day to the max. Loved this book.
January 12, 2026
"Stone botherers," lol!
I loved this book that managed to be both historic and current, well-researched (the bibliography!) and personal, a bit woo, but at least a little bit of woo is understandable when the topic is the megaliths of Britain.
I picked up the book because I wish I could be a Fiona-level stone botherer, but now that I've read it it's mostly Stephen that I'm thinking about. But the juxtaposition of our own and our loved ones' mortality with these almost immortal creations throughout the book really works.
I loved this book that managed to be both historic and current, well-researched (the bibliography!) and personal, a bit woo, but at least a little bit of woo is understandable when the topic is the megaliths of Britain.
I picked up the book because I wish I could be a Fiona-level stone botherer, but now that I've read it it's mostly Stephen that I'm thinking about. But the juxtaposition of our own and our loved ones' mortality with these almost immortal creations throughout the book really works.
February 2, 2026
This is part memoir about grief and part archaelogy. My favorite chapters were about those places that I have been to or knew about and are on my travel wishlist. The author makes connections between each location and her own grief journey through memories of visiting most of the places as a family or with her spouse. Very good food for thought in thinking about the changes we travel through in life and how memory can triumph over even death. I've experienced some of these feelings at my own magical places connected to geology and family.
May 20, 2026
Wonderfully written book about Britains standing stones (megaliths). I never knew there were so many and new discoveries still being made as well as clues regarding the origins of why they were created. I applaud the author for being able to weave in her life with her partner/husband whose life was take way too soon by cancer. I just felt at times it took away from the description of the various stones as I felt my mind wandering imagining what her husband must have gone through (not a criticism, just something that impacted me while reading the book).
June 15, 2026
This was super interesting - I got it after going to look at a megalith and wishing there was a bit more storytelling around it. Often our educational material is lacking a colour or depth.
It's set against a backdrop of personal tragedy and loss - but without being crude, it complements the story well.
I'd love to visit some more places mentioned in this book, but I feel like this kind of history is best taken with time to spare, slowly and not just a day trip somewhere to tick it off a list.
It's set against a backdrop of personal tragedy and loss - but without being crude, it complements the story well.
I'd love to visit some more places mentioned in this book, but I feel like this kind of history is best taken with time to spare, slowly and not just a day trip somewhere to tick it off a list.
November 16, 2025
A deeply personal book about loss and grief. Fiona Robertson combines her experience of losing her partner with her/their journeys to ancient megalithic sites, showing how these stones can serve as quiet beacons of hope and endurance. The book touched me deeply (I cried more than once) yet it also added fascinating new destinations to my mental holiday map. I fell in love with stone circles all over again and now I kinda want to build one myself.
December 14, 2025
This book is completely wonderful! It is organised by Fiona’s journeys to standing stones with her family, some with and some without her husband, who she grieves for throughout the book. The writing is beautiful and reduced me to proper sobs at times. I learnt a lot about standing stones and ancient archaeology, and want to start exploring these magical places myself. Highly recommended for anyone who likes nature memoirs/biographies.
October 26, 2025
Somewhere between three and four stars for me. (Also can’t quite forgive ‘oriented’ for ‘orientated’)
A sad story of the early death of a father and husband and hope for the future found among megaliths where many layers of memories are to be found
As for the stones I think it’s a case of ‘you really have to be there’.
Stanton Drew, one of my favourites, is barely mentioned
A sad story of the early death of a father and husband and hope for the future found among megaliths where many layers of memories are to be found
As for the stones I think it’s a case of ‘you really have to be there’.
Stanton Drew, one of my favourites, is barely mentioned
January 8, 2026
3.5 🌟
Exceptionally well researched, loved the weaving together of archeology, folk tales in connection with the stones and surrounding areas, and the human element of the Authors own journey through grief.
The reason for not quite hitting the 4🌟 mark was that I personally found some parts were a bit of a chore to get through.
Exceptionally well researched, loved the weaving together of archeology, folk tales in connection with the stones and surrounding areas, and the human element of the Authors own journey through grief.
The reason for not quite hitting the 4🌟 mark was that I personally found some parts were a bit of a chore to get through.
January 29, 2026
I enjoyed reading this book and was really able to relate to it, as I have myself been through a similar loss to the one that pervades this book, and dealt with my loss, and the run up to it, in much the same way. I found it to be a comforting experience to read the book and think back to my own memories.
February 20, 2026
In this wonderful book, the author shares some of her experiences of visiting a number of prehistoric sites in the United Kingdom. She shares her enthusiasm for these amazing stone circles. At times her journey is one of sadness and past memories. A lovely book for anyone interested in our far-distant past.
January 4, 2026
Immediately one of the most important books of my lifetime. Britain's stones have changed me in ways I cannot explain, so I am grateful that Robertson explained so completely and beautifully.
Especially Boscawen-un
Especially Boscawen-un
February 15, 2026
A nice book about someone who likes stones, I like stones, that's why I read the book. Its a travelogue of visiting many of the better sites in the UK. It dosnt provide any great inside or reveal any new truths. Just lists a few places that are nice to visit.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews