This story takes place in Scotland, in a fictional fishing town called Foulksey Island in 1842. The plot deals with the tragedy and suffering of displaced people, crofters and fishermen, and what happens to them. The title of Standing Stones refers to the real stones from the older eras of history millenniums ago.

The story begins with Moira McDonnell cleaning and salting fish with her fishermen brothers when they watch the arrival of the new English laird Lord Gordon and his wife Alice. While Lord Gordon and his right-hand man Perkins force their ways on the lives of the island people, Lord Gordon comes up with the idea of changing the island’s living style of fishing into sheep farms, by forcing people out of their homes and turning the place into grazing fields for the sheep he wants to bring there. People are evicted, their houses burned, and when they rebel, are killed, shot at, and a child and women raped. The name given to this action is Clearances.

When these fishermen and crofters are forced to go to another place where fishing or farming is next to impossible, a lot of them die of starvation.

McDonnell family members, however, do not give up but they face the future with some of them moving to America, others to other places, as they are survivors, and the sequels to this book will follow them, to show what happens to them.

Standing Stones is a gloomy, depressing, but an important book. By bringing to light the injustices of about two centuries ago, the writer makes the reader think of our present day, its injustices, its displaced people, the poverty, and the strife, and I believe this needs to be the main function of any historical novel.

In addition, the storytelling is exquisite, the characters aptly drawn, and everything about the book shows the skill and eloquence of this author.

learning from history through specific characters and their personal stories.

everything, even if the plot was so sad.

is Beth Camp. She has written The Mermaid Quilt & Other Tales, and the Stones series.

the story and its characters are profound and the book shows a part of history known little about by most.

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Created Feb 07, 2015 at 1:04pm • Submit your own review...