Maggie Craig

I'm a Scottish writer of fiction and non-fiction and love the beauty and the history of my native land. I've expressed my enthusiasm for the latter through non-fiction books. These include the definitive study of women's involvement in the 1745 Jacobite Rising, Damn' Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45, described by one critic as a 'modern classic.' I later published its companion volume Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the '45 . My most recent non-fiction book is One Week in April: The Scottish Radical Rising of 1820.

My novels split into two genres. The first six are family sagas set in my native Glasgow from the 1920s to the 1940s. I prefer to describe them as love stories crossed with social history.

I'm now writing historical novels. I call them Romance Noir, very romantic but gritty too. The first of these is a tale of young love and old Edinburgh, One Sweet Moment, set in the 1820s. One reviewer described it as 'Romance with a capital R', which it most certainly is, although I've also been told that it's not for the faint-hearted. Life wasn't easy if you were a poor young woman back then and I felt the book had to reflect that. One Sweet Moment is also about Edinburgh and its Jekyll and Hyde nature, the parlours of the New Town and the underground vaults and oyster cellars of the Old Town, the visit of King George IV to the city in 1822 and the dramatic Great Fire of Edinburgh of 1824.

My second historical novel is Gathering Storm, a novel of Jacobite intrigue and romance, the first of a suite of novels featuring the same intertwining cast of characters finding their way through the moral dilemmas, drama and battles of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion.

It's sequel is Dance to the Storm, published in 2020.

As a reader, I love to read novels which might be described as intelligent escapism. I also love romantic suspense, the sort of books where you wonder how on earth the hero and heroine are going to make it through to a happy ending. Among my favourite authors are Georgette Heyer, Dorothy L Sayers, Elizabeth Peters and Nora Roberts. I also read a lot of non-fiction, particularly historical. Favourite periods include 18th century and World War 2 Britain and I love to read about the forgotten women of history.