When I started writing Dark, Highland Skies I thought long and hard about the hero: Hector Strachan, known as ‘Tor. I’d already created heroes with typical highlander colouring: dark hair, blue eyes and fair skin that blisters at the first touch of the summer sun. (see Ruairi Urquhart in Tall, Dark and Kilted). Some of my choices were influenced by Jamie Frazer in Outlander – who could resist the combination of auburn hair and blue-grey eyes. Then I thought, no, Tor is going to be more like his Viking ancestors who harried the west coast of Scotland and left their DNA behind: tall, blonde – the image of a young Robert Redford sprang to mind. Well, a girl can dream, can’t she!

It appears that readers and reviewers have fallen for Tor, too. Here’s what they’ve said …

It’s great to see our military heroes so well understood, with life changing injury and post traumatic stress explored sympathetically (in Tor’s case)

It is not just the story itself which I loved but also the description of all the locations and in many cases the history behind it, I would say it was all extremely well researched

I must say I rather fell for Tor – not only because he looked like my kind of guy but because of his infinite patience and gentleness, too.

The chemistry between astrophysicist Halley Dunbar and veteran Tor Strachan, a soldier suffering from PTSD and veteran Tor Strachan simply sizzles.

A former career soldier, he was invalided out of the army following horrific wounds sustained in a dreadful incident in Afghanistan

An extract from Dark Highland Skies

‘Look.’ Tor pointed skywards to where a golden eagle was circling above them, its wing tips spread open like fingers, yellow talons tucked neatly into its body. It turned its head and looked down on them, as if demanding to know what they were doing on its land. Its high chirruping cry cut through the bright, still air, drawing everyone’s gaze away from the coffin and heavenward. ‘It’s a sign that Tam is ready to leave us and that all will be well,’ Tor murmured, bending his head close so only Halley could hear.