The Last Sunset [Kindle Edition]

Andy Macmillan is a soldier, not a hero. I mean, look at him, leading a detachment to fire a heavy machinegun over the heads of recruits scrambling through the muddy training ground in the Scottish Highlands. Join the army to see the world and meet pretty lasses? Hardly!

Then a blinding red light fills the eastern sky and a mist engulfs them, filled by shadowy figures from a bygone age. The mist rolls back to reveal a simpler landscape, where the air is filled with the taint of burning peat, and the sound of Gaelic voices. When Andy’s squad encounters the local Lochaber villagers, only the headman — Achnacon — can speak English, the detested tongue of King George. Language is no barrier to love, however, and Achnacon’s daughter, Ishbel, has no need of English when she meets Andy, her brave soldier from the future.

An adhar dearg — the red light in the sky — has reached through time and brought Andy back for a reason. Glen Laragain in 1746 is not a time for lovers to fool around in the heather. The Highlanders have had their fill of King George in distant London and have risen in rebellion in support of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

In this age, Fort William is not just the name of a town, a tourist stop for coach trips to the Scottish Highlands. The fortified military base at Fort William exists for a single purpose: for the redcoats to control this region of Scotland.

Now the Highlanders’ siege of Fort William has been broken, and the garrison is thirsting for revenge. The history books tell of the resulting massacres.

The redcoats are coming!

More than a just a time travel romance, The Last Sunset is a tale of rebellion, of sacrifice and choice, of one man’s struggle to prove himself and the woman he needs to do so.

Andy McMillan is a soldier.

But will he also prove to be a hero?



“…you will spend the rest of the day thinking about it once you close the back cover!” — Book Worm Brandy
“…conjures up the atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands beautifully.” — amazon.co.uk review
“…it has the strength to be a comedy and also a love story which at times cuts really close to the bone.” — amazon.co.uk review

I was born and raised in the district of Lochaber, in the Western Highlands of Scotland. At the age of seventeen the age old curse of the Highlands, lack of work and opportunity, forced me to take the same military path taken by many of my forebears. While serving with the army in Northern Ireland I met my future wife; the lovely and diminutive Ruby, inspiration for at least one of the female characters in The Last Sunset. After leaving the army I moved to Belfast where together Ruby and I lived through many of the worst years of the Troubles. Eventually, very much the worse for wear, we brought our young family of three home to the Highlands. Here I worked for many years in the civil service, retaining some sanity by fleeing into the wilderness as often as possible. Eventually I was rescued by early retirement. The lochs, hills and glens of Lochaber are like balm to the soul, and have inspired storytellers for as long as people have lived in these glens. The Last Sunset is simply the latest in a long line of tales inspired by this ancient land.