
Those are the letter seals of Lord Pitsligo, a man I have written about before:
- when I visited his castle
- when I searched for his cave
- and then on The Witch, The Weird and the Wonderful blog where I talked more fully about his life.

His forward thinking ways inspired aspects of the Laird in THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR and a similar set of letter seals feature in FIREFLIES AND CHOCOLATE.

The seals were shown to me by a direct descendant of Lord Pitsligo. I got to hold them and turn them on their hinges, which was wonderfully informative (and exciting!).

FIREFLIES AND CHOCOLATE will be out on April 1st!
Amazon (kindle pre-order)
Waterstones (paperback pre-order)
And it now has a blurb:

Elizabeth craves adventure… excitement… love…
For now though, she has to settle for a trip from her family’s castle, to the port in Aberdeen, where her father has promised she’ll be permitted to buy a horse… all of her own.
Little does she suspect this simple journey will change her life, forever. And as she dreams of riding her new mount through the forests and glens of the Manteith estate, she can have no idea that she might never see them again.
For what lies ahead is danger, unimagined… and the fearful realities of kidnap and slavery.
But even when everything seems lost, most especially the chance of ever getting home again, Elizabeth finds friendship, comfort… and that much prized love, just where she least expected it.
Set in the mid eighteenth century, Fireflies and Chocolate is a story of strength, courage and tolerance, in a time filled with far too many prejudices.
It’s all getting a bit too exciting for me again… I need a nice calming walk in the woods below the witch’s brooms (growth abnormalities caused by a fungus in the trees)!

Set in a fictional castle in Aberdeenshire, Ailish Sinclair’s debut novel, THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR, features an often overlooked event in history, the 1597 Aberdeen witchcraft panic, and a love story.
