First published 2005
David Balfour has just smuggled his friend Alan Breck Stewart onto a boat bound for France. That should have been the end of it. Instead, David finds himself tangled in the aftermath of the Appin murder, the killing of Colin Campbell of Glenure, the man they called the Red Fox. The Crown wants someone to hang for it, and James of the Glens is already in chains. David knows enough to help, but every move he makes puts his own neck closer to the noose. The political machinery of eighteenth-century Scotland grinds on regardless of innocence or guilt, and David is too young and too honest to know how to work it. His one ally is Catriona, the daughter of the cunning and untrustworthy James More. She is not a safe person to trust, but David trusts her anyway. The story moves through the closes and courtyards of Edinburgh, across the water to the continent, and through the slow, uncertain business of a young man falling in love while the law closes in around him.
Genres: classic-literature, romance, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, adventure, coming-of-age
Vibes: atmospheric, introspective, morally-complex, romantic, suspenseful
Tropes: forced-proximity, friends-to-lovers, innocent-man-hunted
Setting: Scotland, Edinburgh, France, Appin
Period: 18th century, 1751
Content warnings: murder, violence