13 Brilliant eBooks From Scotland

Top up your to-read list with this pick of brilliant ebooks from Scottish authors and publishers.

A House Called Askival by Merryn Glover

Freight Books / Via freightbooks.co.uk

This debut novel from Highlands-based author Merryn Glover draws on her own experiences to depict the perspectives of multiple generations of missionary children in the misty Mussoorie district of India. At times funny, and at others deeply moving, A House Called Askival is a beetle-catching, boarding school-escaping, cross-cultural journey through troubled and intense 20th century Indian history as Ruth examines her bond with estranged family and navigates two distinct cultural identities.

Truth or Dare by Sara Sheridan

Sara Sheridan / Via sarasheridan.com

When bank employee Lorna McLeish is sent to Cardiff for three months, her friends Libby and Becka think nothing of squatting in her empty London flat. However, they soon uncover a dark secret: Lorna never arrived in Cardiff. The girls make their own rules and break the rest as they lie, cheat and panic through London, Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin to discover what happened, discovering some self-truths along the way.

Fishnet by Kirstin Innes

Freight Books / Via freightbooks.co.uk

Bittersweet, sensual and rich, Kirstin Innes' Fishnet is a well researched look at the lives of sex workers. Twenty year old Rona Leonard walks out of her sister Fiona’s flat and disappears. Six years on, worn down by a tedious job, child care and the aching absence in her life, Fiona’s mundane existence is blown apart by the revelation that, before she disappeared, Rona had been working as a prostitute. Driven to discover the truth, Fiona embarks on an obsessive quest to investigate the sex industry. As she is drawn into a complex world, Fiona makes shocking discoveries that challenge everything she believed, and will ultimately change her life forever.

The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau by Graeme Macrae Burnet

Saraband / Via saraband.co.uk

Manfred Baumann is a loner. Socially awkward and perpetually ill at ease, he spends his evenings quietly drinking and surreptitiously observing Adèle Bedeau, the sullen but alluring waitress at a drab bistro in the unremarkable small French town of Saint-Louis. But one day, she simply vanishes into thin air. When Georges Gorski, a detective haunted by his failure to solve one of his first murder cases, is called in to investigate the girl’s disappearance, Manfred’s repressed world is shaken to its core and he is forced to confront the dark secrets of his past. ‘The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau’ is a literary mystery novel that is, at heart, an engrossing psychological portrayal of an outsider pushed to the limit by his own feverish imagination.

The Limits of the World by Andrew Raymond Drennan

Cargo Books / Via cargopublishing.com

Pyongyang, North Korea, 2011. In a city full of lies one man seeks the truth. In Kim Jong-il’s North Korea, Han, a lonely guide to foreign tourists, is rapidly ascending the party ranks and appears to be a model citizen. But when he is drawn into a secret underground book group by the enigmatic Mae, Han knows that in a country ruled by fear and suspicion - where lovers and neighbours denounce each other - it is only a matter of time before his double life is discovered by the ruthless Party elite. With no one else to turn to, he must do the unthinkable: risk his life by putting his trust in two undercover Western journalists trying to expose the regime, before the brutal realities of North Korean life catch up with him.

Da Haappie Laand by Robert Alan Jamieson

Luath Press / Via luath.co.uk

An experimental novel on a grand scale, beautifully carried through. A Perth minister takes in a traumatised stranger who calls himself 'the son and heir to being lost'. When the stranger disappears, the events leading up to and following on from this are revealed. Shifting perspectives from a contemporary mystery to a history of Shetland and emigration, it extends the idea of Scottish empire and diaspora imaginatively, while addressing notions of being and belonging in 21st century Scotland in this novel by Alan Jamieson.

The Way Out by Vicki Jarrett

Freight Books / Via freightbooks.co.uk

A girl on a paper round gets more than she bargained for. A couple feels the strain when the money runs out. Life plays out in the bingo hall and at the bus stop. Welcome to a world of chip shops, offices, call centres and run-down homes. In this remarkable debut collection of stories from an acclaimed new voice, the lives of women at the margins are explored; people living on the edge of relationships, the economy and society. Jarrett’s unforgettable characters dream of escape from jobs, relationships and lives but, most of all, from the consequences of failure and success. The Way Out is heart-breaking, tender, devastatingly honest and brimming with black comedy.

Refrigerator Cake by Dickson Telfer

Fledgling Press / Via fledglingpress.co.uk

Dickson Telfer returns with this fresh offering of dark and comical short prose about everyday life. Join a 92-year-old man in his quest for peace. Place yourself in front of a class from hell. Be surprised by your home town. Discover the unsettling world behind the curtain of television. Look dead fish in the eye. Traipse your way through litter and text messages. Bark with joy. And don't let anything stop you enjoying refrigerator cake.

The Kailyard Collection

Palimplest / Via theeclassicscollection.com

Try something old with this Scottish lost treasures collection of three classic ‘Kailyard’ novels breathing life back into lost stories, each offers a superbly plotted and descriptive narrative.

Any Other Mouth by Anneliese Mackintosh

Freight Books / Via freightbooks.co.uk

A viciously funny and heart-breaking collection of semi-autobiographical short stories. Any Other Mouth is a gut-wrenching and shockingly frank account of sexual misadventure, familial disintegration, bereavement and self-discovery, in the vein of David Vann's Legend of a Suicide, Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted, and Miranda July's Nobody Belongs Here More Than You. In this highly personal work, Anneliese Mackintosh has taken the most intense episodes of her life so far, and reimagined them in these profound, playful and poignant tales.

Tokyo by Nicholas Hogg

Cargo Books / Via cargopublishing.co.uk

Social psychologist Ben Monroe has returned to Tokyo after a failed marriage, determined to seek out his former lover Kozue. His estranged teenage daughter Mazzy reluctantly flies from California to join him. On the flight she meets a young Japanese man, Koji, a cult survivor, who tells her the story of the luminous night princess Kaguya, a powerful tale of beauty and obsession. As Ben delves deeper into the underworld in search of Kozue, Mazzy and Koji are compelled to follow, and their four lives dangerously intersect as past and present collide in this modern fable of love and loss.

The Other Ida by Amy Mason

Cargo / Via cargopublishing.co.uk

Almost 30 and entirely irresponsible, Ida Irons returns home for her mother’s funeral. It’s the first time she’s been back, or seen her younger sister Alice, in fourteen years. Their mother was the caustic and secretive writer Bridie Adair, who named Ida after her infamous play. While Ida has been struggling to escape its shadow, Alice has been dealing with problems of her own. Forced to confront their fractured relationship, the sisters deal with their troubling history and search for the true story behind the play, finally asking the question: what really happened to ‘the other’ Ida?

The Blue Horse by Philip Miller

Freight Books / Via freightbooks.co.uk

Recently bereaved, George Newhouse, is an art historian and newly appointed curator at the National Gallery who becomes increasingly obsessed with a lost minor Dutch masterpiece, The Blue Horse by Van Doelenstraat. The painting’s provenance is disputed and many doubt its existence at all. But Newhouse has uncovered a letter by Rembrandt where the master states, ‘That damned painting vexes my mind’s eye’. As Newhouse struggles with his grief, his grip of reality slowly loosening, he embarks on surreal journey of loss and self-discovery, fuelled by alcohol, drugs and self-destructive behaviour. As the lines between reality and imagination blur, will George lose himself in his obsession or return from the brink of destruction in time?