The Heather-Moon

Ah, this one gobbled me up and didn't let me go until the end! It is headed straight for my favorites shelf. If the Williamsons hadn't been favorite authors before this book, they certainly would be now. I stayed up until midnight to finish, and I hadn't the heart to resent the 6am alarm this morning because I enjoyed it so much.

Barrie is a young girl of eighteen whose grandmother has kept her extremely sheltered, even from most neighbors. At last she gains entrance to the locked garret and finds all sorts of odd things, resulting in her finding out that her mother is still alive and working as an actress. She quietly resolves to leave the house and go to her mother, and does so that very night. She is attempting to gain a ticket to go to London when she gains the attention of a passing gentleman, Ian Somerled, a painter who has made his own fortune.

Somerled takes her under his wing and into his motor-car, bringing her to a lady friend of his to stay in safety until they find out where her mother actually is. Turns out the lady is about to begin a play in Ediburgh, but is on holiday at the moment; so there is a week that Barrie must wait to go to her mother. It is spent in a motor-car touring through southern Scotland, especially the Border country so famous in literature. Even so, this section of the book is shorter than many of the other Williamson travelogue fiction I've enjoyed in the past.

There are many references to history and to literature in the things they see. There are descriptions of fabled castles, identification of the real that inspired the fictitious scenes, and thoughts about the authors that wrote of them. Authors mentioned include Burns, Carlyle, Scott, and S.R. Crockett—the latter a pleasant surprise, for he is mostly forgotten today, but is one of my favorite authors. Indeed, I'd actually pulled out my copy of "The Raiders" the night before I began reading this book, so it was fascinating to read the story of its scenery in a book that was just ahead of it in my immediate To-Read stack! Of course I am reading it next.

The book builds to a nail-biting climax for Barrie, and just saves itself for a good ending at the absolute last moment. You won't be able to put it down!