Lady Magdalen — Robin Jenkins

This beautifully rendered novel of 17th century Scotland imagines the life of Lady Magdalene, 1st Marchioness of Montrose, during the English Civil War.
 
Magadalen, the fourteen-year-old daughter of Lord Carnegie of Kinnaird, shares with her childhood friend, Francis Gowrie of Mintlaw, a love of art and beauty, and a horror of barbaric practices such as the burning of women thought to be witches. But, with civil war brewing and family alliances paramount, Carnegie arranges her marriage to an ambitious young soldier, James Graham, Earl of Montrose. So begins this captivating portrait of the little-known wife of the infamous Scottish nobleman.
 
In Lady Magdalen, Robin Jenkins casts his ironic and informed eye over war-torn 17th-century Scotland, juxtaposing the feminine and domestic with the political and military ramifications of the era. It is a lush and acutely perceptive tale by an author whose “deeply ambivalent analysis of human idealism has established him as the greatest living fiction writer in Scotland” (The Scotsman, UK).