Highland Mary: The Romance of a Poet

The year is 1786. Robert Burns, the Ayrshire ploughman who pens verses by candlelight, has just published his first collection of poems and is about to become the most celebrated poet in Scotland. But beneath his rising fame lies a heart torn between two women: Highland Mary Campbell, the dark-eyed Highlander who stirred his soul with a love as fierce as the storms on the Isle of Bute, and Jean Armour, the golden-haired Belle of Mauchline who represents duty, stability, and a different kind of longing. This novel traces the arc of Burns' brief but legendary life, weaving through his years of hardship, his sudden ascent to literary stardom, his turbulent affairs of the heart, and the personal demons that haunted him until his death at thirty-seven. Highland Mary burned bright and brief, and this novel captures both the flame and the fallout. The tragic fate of Mary, who drowned young in the waters of the Firth of Clyde, has become one of Scotland's most enduring legends. This book honors that mythmaking while revealing the flesh-and-blood woman behind the legend - and the poet whose greatest verses were inspired by the women he loved and lost.