Once in a while a book grabs you, and by the second page you are hooked.  This is one of them.

 

This is the story of the little know wife of a notorious Scottish rebel.  A young, fragile thing who was married off at 14 to an uncaring curr who just wants to be a 'great' soldier.  Well he does what ever it takes to achieve it - destroying his wife and family in the process.

 

Robin Jekins has created a magical tale.  He has woven the basic historic facts with the domestic trivia of the day to produce this picture of a young wife with no power or rights, but with ideas and understanding, and her slow decline.  Magdalen is incredibly perceptive, and can see past all the rhetoric spouted about war and politics, but in the end it does not matter much - her status leaves her totally at the mercy of her men folk.  There is no happy ending I afraid, and there is much sorrow along the way. 

 

Don't be misled by my description -  this is not a morbid, depressing book: it's actually quite up lifting.  Robin Jenkins has a very wry sense of hummer and a keen eye for people's character.  Quite often he made me giggle with a comment or description, and the way he marries off the village hussy to the upright teacher - and makes it come out all right in the end is a study in it's self.

 

I did struggle a bit with some of the servants local dialect.  I think it's meant as a device to exaggerate the difference between the servants and gentry, given that they freely mingled with each other.  Personally I just found too hard to unpick - and skipped over it.  There is not much of it so it make no difference to the story.