Sake Jock

Tunes of Glory Household Ghosts Silence This volume collects three of the very best works by James Kennaway, the brilliant young novelist and screenwriter who tragically died in a car crash at the early age of forty. Memorably filmed with Alec Guinness and John Mills, Tunes of Glory is a grippingly dramatic exploration of the glamour and the brutality of post-war army life as the tensions and conflicts in the officers' mess of a Highland regiment lead to shame and tragedy. Household Ghosts is a claustrophobic tale of family tension, love triangles and the persistence of the past-one of Kennaway's favourite themes. Set in a country house in Scotland the book is haunted, like the privileged family it describes, by the ghosts of Scotland's own turbulent history. Taken from completed drafts on the author's desk, Silence tells of the accidental meeting and the complex union between a white man and a black woman in times of racial tension and sexual violence. Set in a North American city in midwinter Kennaway's last and brilliantly succinct novel expands into a universal allegory of suffering and death.

If I owned Durham, and I owned hell, I'd rent out Durham and I'd live in hell. Born in Denton Burn, Ric Renton had a troubled upbringing that led to him spending his young adulthood in prison. During a stint in solitary confinement, he declined a proffered Bible and on a whim, chanced it and asked for a dictionary instead. This choice afforded him an ability with language that would shape his life far beyond his station through writing. This is his story. Three young men Knox, Brown, and Shepherd pass their time in a prison with the highest suicide rate in the country. Energised by their friendship but with the walls around them getting smaller, haunted by the repeated pronouncements of another life lost, the arrival of a nightwatchman, Jock, offers Shepherd an unexpected way through the darkness. One Off is rich with emotion but sizzling with high energy and the blackest humour. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Live Theatre in Newcastle, in November 2022.

In 'The Transplanted,' the writer depicts the rise of British Columbia's lumbering and mining industries with their effects on different characters. Two men from Glasgow, Robert Wallace, and Jock Galbraith maintain a strong bond despite hardships. But one of them becomes a builder of Canada, opening up the town of Elkhorn.

In denim and rawhid Roland Thorton looked every inch a stable hand. But his bloodlines ran as blue as teh Montagues, age-old enemies of the Thortons, whose palace the prince infiltrated, searching for his kidnapped half sister. Yet it was another woman whose image consumed him day…and night. Lily claimed to be a lady's maid, yet her grace rivaled any royal princess's. Initially Roland thought to use Lily to expose the Montagues' deceit. Instead, it was his guarded heart that this fair maiden broke open with her innoncence. Then he discovered he wasn't the only royal masquerading….

Iris Grey arrives at Pitfeldy Castle in the Highlands, at the request of the Baron, Jock MacKinnon. Jock has commissioned Iris to paint a portrait of his fiancé, an American socialite Kathy Miller, ahead of their New Year wedding. Kathy invites Iris into her confidence, she's received a series of threatening notes asking her to call off the wedding. Iris begins to investigate, and when remains are discovered in the grounds of the Castle, she fears for Kathy's safety. With the wedding fast approaching, Iris once again enters a world of family feuds, romantic intrigue, buried secrets and murder.