I am thrilled to be bringing you an excerpt from this book today. The Miller's Bride by Liz Harris is set in Scotland during the 1880's and looks like a great read for historical fiction fans.
The Blurb
When independence comes at a price...
Scotland, 1885
Gracie McLeod’s life changes overnight when her father sells the family grocer’s shop and moves the family from their Highland village to a distant fishing town. But Gracie refuses to follow.
Desperate to maintain her independence, she reluctantly agrees to an arranged marriage to Angus MacKenzie – a stranger who makes it clear he doesn’t want her, and who is in love with another woman. When Gracie arrives at the mill she now must call home, she finds herself entangled in a web of deceit and ambition. Unknown to her, Angus’s cousin is plotting to take over the mill and destroy her marriage from within, and he’s enlisted Angus’s former lover to help him.
As secrets and sabotage threaten to ruin everything Gracie has tried to build, she must decide whether to fight for a life she never wanted – or walk away with nothing.
A sweeping, emotionally rich saga about betrayal, resilience, and a woman brave enough to demand more.
The Extract
Chapter One
Callentoon, Scotland, April 1885
‘Absolutely not!’ Grace McLeod stood in the parlour facing her parents, her grey eyes blazing. ‘You can’t make me.’
Hamish McLeod, upright in his favourite high-backed chair at the side of the small black grate, took the pipe from his mouth and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, hen, but that’s the way it has to be. Fergus McCulloch has offered what’s a fair price for the grocery shop in the circumstances, and I’ve accepted it.’
Grace gave an audible gasp.
‘Ever since your mother wrote to your uncle that times were getting harder,’ her father continued, ‘your uncle’s been pestering us to move to Portweem. And when he told your mother in his last letter that their local grocery store was up for sale, I knew the time had come.’
‘Your father’s no choice, hen,’ her mother said. She took a letter from the table next to her and put it on her lap. Then she settled back in the chair on the opposite side of the grate from her husband. ‘You know the shop’s been struggling for years.’
‘That doesn’t mean we have to go and live next door to Uncle Malcolm! You know how much he hates me. That time we stayed with him, he was always complaining about me, criticising everything I did. Criticising everything everyone in his family did. I know he’s your brother, Da, but he’s a bully. We’d have to answer to him for everything, and you know it.’
‘That won’t happen,’ her mother said firmly. ‘But I admit he didn’t seem to take to you, hen. You must agree, though, you can be outspoken at times. Even as a little girl that was true. Da and I have encouraged you to think for yourself, and to say what you think, but I’m not sure your uncle takes the same approach.’
‘You know he doesn’t, Mam. Cousin Sarah is scared of him. You can tell that from her letters. So in addition to living next door to a tyrant, we’d be stuck in a small fishing village miles from anywhere,’ Grace snapped. ‘Everyone there will smell of fish. It’s a smell I loathe, and it lingers. There’d be gutted fish everywhere and piles of nets wherever you turned. I can’t think of a place I want to be less than that. I’m not going, and you can’t make me.’
Her sister looked up from her seat in front of the sewing table under the window. ‘Uncle will have probably changed since then. He could have mellowed over the years.’
‘There’s no sign of that in Sarah’s letters. But anyway, what you say doesn’t count, Eliza,’ Grace said sharply. ‘All you care about is sewing. You’ve no intention of staying in Portweem for long, and you know it. As soon as you can, you’ll move to a large town and start your own business. So where we go isn’t as important to you as it is to me.’
Eliza shrugged. ‘You can never be sure of what the future holds.’
‘Well, like most people, I hope it holds a wedding for me, but not with a fisherman! All a fisherman would be able to talk about is the latest herring catch.’ She shuddered. ‘I can’t think of anything worse. It’s just not for me.’
‘Well, it is for your mother and me,’ her father said with a note of finality. ‘You’ve helped in the shop for long enough to know that we’re not getting the number of customers we used to, not since the price of cattle started falling some years ago, and large sheep farms needing fewer workers began to replace them. People are leaving the area every day.’
‘I know that,’ she said sullenly.
‘And you also know that the potato blight hit the crofting communities so hard that a lot of crofters have been leaving, too,’ her father went on. ‘People just aren’t as attached to their land in the way their forefathers were and they’re going further south to the new towns and villages nearer the borders, where there’re lots of new industries. They know they’ll find work there. We’re doing the same. The herring industry is booming, so we’re going to Portweem.’
Grace folded her arms and glared mutinously at her parents. ‘I’m not. I’m staying in Callentoon.’
‘You can’t stay here without us,’ her mother said firmly. She picked up the letter in her lap and cleared her throat. ‘But luckily you’ve an alternative.’
Grace frowned at her. ‘What alternative? What’re you talking about?’
Martha McLeod shifted her position to face her daughter. ‘You know I’ve always kept in touch with my school friend Ellen ever since she moved away to marry the miller in Alltburn. It’s too far for us to visit each other, so we’ve had to make do with writing. Well, in the last letter I wrote to Ellen, I told her that when we’d sold the shop, we’d be moving to the fishing village where your uncle lived, and I said that whenever the subject had come up, you’d been very against going there.’
‘Aye, and I still am.’
Martha held up the letter. ‘This is from Douglas MacKenzie, Ellen’s husband. It contains the very upsetting news that Ellen has died. My letter arrived after her death, and he read it. When he learnt that you were reluctant to live in a fishing village, it gave him an idea.’
Grace’s brow creased. ‘An idea about what?’
‘About what you could do, hen. From everything he’d heard about you over the years, he’s certain he’d like you, and he suggested you marry his son, Angus. Ellen and Douglas were married for several years before I wed your father, and Angus is a few years older than you.’
‘What!’ Grace exclaimed. Laughing dismissively, she looked from her mother to her father and back again to her mother. At the sight of her mother’s expression, her laughter died away.
‘Think about Douglas’s proposal,’ Martha said quietly. ‘Moving to Alltburn Mill would solve the problem of you not wanting to come with us to Portweem.’
‘It’s a rather extreme way of doing that, don’t you think?’ Grace retorted.
‘That may be,’ her mother said. ‘But think carefully about what you really want. You say you want to stay here, but do you? Callentoon is getting smaller all the time. A lot of the men you might have married have moved away, and the ones pursuing you don’t interest you. But you do want to marry. You’re not like Eliza who’s always wanted to have her own dress shop. While you’ve helped your father enough to know how to run a shop, you’ve never indicated any desire to do so. Isn’t it going to Portweem that’s the problem, not leaving Callentoon?’
For a long moment, Grace stared at her mother without speaking. ‘What’s wrong with this Angus that he can’t find someone for himself?’ she asked at last.
Her mother gave a slight cough. ‘Actually, he thinks he has done. He’s been seeing a totally unsuitable girl, a Jessie Wilson, and he’s told Douglas that he wants to marry her.
Douglas dislikes the girl intensely, and won’t have her near the mill. So if you marry Angus, it would help Douglas as well as you.’
‘That’s hardly the most important consideration for me,’ she said, close to tears of despair.
‘I know, hen,’ her mother said quietly. ‘But isn’t having a house of your own an important consideration? Douglas and Angus live in one of the cottages by the mill. He’s got a housekeeper who’s been with him and Ellen for years. He wrote that Angus will move into the cottage next to his when he marries.’
‘Angus should be allowed to marry whoever he wants, not who Douglas wants,’ Grace said sulkily.
‘With Angus and his wife living so close to Douglas, what Douglas wants does matter, hence him making the suggestion he did. And it’s not such an unusual thing to suggest – parents often find the husband or wife for their child. If you marry Angus, you’ll not only have your own home, but also the security of the mill. Angus is the only son. It’s the ideal solution.’
‘For Douglas, maybe, but not for me. I’d be a housekeeper to someone who’s in love with someone else. I want more for myself than that.’
‘Angus might be very good-looking,’ Eliza said with a sly smile.
‘And he might resemble a short fat bulldog,’ Grace sharply countered. ‘I’m not going to take that chance.’
‘Then you must go into domestic service,’ her father said firmly. ‘If you’re determined to stay in Callentoon, it’s the only way you can do so.’
‘Never!’ Grace exclaimed. ‘If I was someone’s servant, I’d lose all my freedom. I could be living anywhere as I’d seldom be allowed outside the house. Even a housekeeper has more freedom than that.’
Hamish McLeod stood up. ‘You’ve a choice, lassie. Go into domestic service with one of the local families, move with us to Portweem, or marry Angus. Think about it overnight and tell your mother and me your decision tomorrow.’
‘There’s no point in waiting,’ Grace said sullenly. ‘I haven’t really got a choice, have I? I’ll have to marry the man, no matter how ghastly he is.’
Turning, she burst into tears and ran out of the room.
Book Details
ISBN: 978 1807031183
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Formats: e-book, audio, hardback and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited)
No. of Pages: 312 (paperback)
Series: Book 1 in the House of McLeod series
Purchase Links
Bookshop.org
Amazon UK
Amazon US
About the Author
Liz Harris is an award-winning author of 28 novels, including emotional and heartwarming sagas that are perfect for fans of Dilly Court, Rosie Goodwin, Rachel Brimble and AnneMarie Brear.
Her latest series of sagas, The House of McLeod, is set in Scotland in the 1880s, and was a joy to research for someone who loves to travel, as Liz does, as it involved Liz going up to beautiful Scotland for several weeks and staying in Central Scotland, Fife and Edinburgh, where the three books are set.
After graduating in Law in the UK, Liz moved to California where she led a varied life - from cocktail waitressing on Sunset Strip to secretary to the CEO of a large Japanese trading company. Upon returning to England, she completed a degree in English and then taught in a secondary school for a number of years before developing her writing career.
Liz now lives in Windsor, Berkshire. Her two sons have fled the nest, and now have families of their own. In what free time she has, which isn't much, she loves to travel, go to the theatre and cinema, do cryptic crosswords, and above all, to lose herself in a novel!
You can also find Liz at:
Author Website
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Instagram
Bluesky
Other Blog Posts Featuring Sagas
Dark Secrets on Dressmakers' Alley by Rosie Clarke
Stormy Skies at the Beach Hotel by Francesca Capaldi
Troubled Times for Tilly by Kay Seeley
The Market Girls of Petticoat Lane by Patricia McBride
Heartache on West India Dock Road by Renita D'Silva
(media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)
(all opinions are my own)
(Bookshop.org affiliated)
