The Road Dance

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Large Print publishing January 2025

About the Book: 

Life in the Scottish Hebrides can be harsh – the edge of the world some call it. For the beautiful Kirsty Macleod, the love of Murdo and their dreams of America promise an escape from the scrape of the land, the repression of the Church and the inevitablility of the path their lives would take.

But as the Great War looms Murdo is conscripted. The villagers hold a grand Road Dance to send their young men off to battle. As the dancers swirl and sup, the wheels of tragedy are set in motion.

Reviews: 

Powerful, shocking, heartbreaking. SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL

Breathtaking. THE FILM MAGAZINE

[MacKay] has captured time, place and atmosphere superbly... SUNDAY HERALD

A gripping plot that subtly twists and turns, vivid characterisation, and a real sense of time and tradition, this is an absorbing, powerful first novel. SCOTS MAGAZINE

One of the most powerful aspects of the book is the way in which it conjures up the atmosphere of fear that stalks a community where the church casts “sinners” into the wilderness. SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

About the Author:

JOHN MACKAY is a Scottish broadcast journalist and STV News presenter.  John is co-anchor on STV News at Six and presenter on Scotland Tonight, the country's most popular news and current affairs programmes.  A highly-respected journalist with over 30 years’ experience, John has covered many of the biggest news stories in Scotland in recent times and has been witness to Scotland’s transformation as a society and a nation which he charts in non-fiction title, Notes of a Newsman. 

John’s fiction writing draws upon the oral traditions of his Hebridean background with a trilogy of bestselling novels set in the Isle of Lewis, the first of which has been adapted for the big screen.  His fourth novel, a sweeping Hebridean story, Home, follows the stories of one family over 100 years.