19 Best Scottish Historical Fiction Books

Scotland has given historical fiction more than its share of great stories. It gave the genre itself a start: Walter Scott’s Waverley, published in 1814, is often called the first historical novel. Since then, writers have returned again and again to the same rich ground: warrior kings and doomed queens, witch trials and Jacobite risings, the Highland Clearances and the quiet farms of the north east.

This list gathers the best Scottish historical fiction in the order of the history it covers, from Macbeth’s eleventh century to Glasgow in the 1930s. It mixes classics by Scott and Stevenson with modern favourites, prize winners and a few books that deserve far more readers than they have.

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What Counts as Scottish Historical Fiction?

For this list, a novel has to be set mainly in Scotland, or follow Scottish characters through a real period of Scottish history. That covers books by Scottish writers and by outsiders who fell in love with the country, such as the American novelists Diana Gabaldon and Margaret George.

The Jacobite risings have so many good novels that they get their own list. This page includes four of the essentials, and our Best Jacobite Historical Fiction list goes deeper into 1715 and 1745.

Quick Picks

If you want	Read
The most famous Scottish novel of all	Outlander
A real adventure story	Kidnapped
A swashbuckling literary epic	The Game of Kings
Macbeth as you’ve never seen him	King Hereafter
Robert the Bruce	The Steps to the Empty Throne
Mary, Queen of Scots	Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles
A short, dark true crime story	His Bloody Project
A Victorian Edinburgh mystery	The Way of All Flesh
The book Scotland voted its favourite	Sunset Song

Medieval Scotland

1. King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett (1982)

Setting: Orkney and Scotland, eleventh century

Dunnett builds this huge novel on a bold idea: that Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, and the historical Macbeth were one and the same man. Thorfinn is his birth name and Macbeth his baptismal name. The story opens with a gawky teenage earl, grandson of King Malcolm of Alba, stepping into the fight for power in a Scotland that is still half pagan.

This is not Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Dunnett spent years researching the period, and she gives Thorfinn a whole world of Norse earls, Irish kings and Church politics to move through. It is a demanding read, but readers who finish it often call it her best book. Our Dorothy Dunnett author page covers all of her novels.

Perfect for: Patient readers who want the real history behind a famous play.

2. The Steps to the Empty Throne by Nigel Tranter (1969)

Setting: Scotland during the Wars of Independence, after Edward I took control of the country

Nigel Tranter wrote more than a hundred books, and most of them dramatise Scottish history. This is the first book of his Bruce trilogy, and the best place to start with him. With Scotland under English rule, a young Robert Bruce, encouraged by William Wallace, sets out on the long road to the Scottish crown.

Tranter keeps close to the historical record and fills the gaps with lively dialogue and battle scenes. If Braveheart left you wanting the fuller story, this is where to find it.

Perfect for: Readers who want Robert the Bruce and Scottish independence told on a big scale.

The Age of Mary, Queen of Scots

3. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett (1961)

Setting: Scotland and the English border, 1547

After five years in exile, Francis Crawford of Lymond comes home to a Scotland reeling from English invasion. He is accused of treason and murder, and his own family does not know whether to trust him. Lymond is brilliant, cruel, funny and maddening, and the reader spends the whole book trying to work him out.

The Game of Kings is the first of the six Lymond Chronicles, which follow Lymond across Europe and the Ottoman world and are some of the most loved books in the genre. The opening chapters are dense, full of quotations and wordplay, but they reward patience. Many readers say the series changed what they expect from historical fiction. For more from this period, see our Best Tudor Historical Fiction list.

Perfect for: Readers who love clever dialogue, sword fights and a hero who is never quite what he seems.

4. Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George (1992)

Setting: France and Scotland, sixteenth century

Margaret George is known for long fictional biographies, and this is one of her best. It follows Mary from her childhood at the French court to her return to rule a Scotland that is Protestant, divided and suspicious of its young Catholic queen.

At nearly 900 pages, the novel has room for everything: the court, the lords, the religious quarrels and the men who shape Mary’s life. George is fair to Mary without turning her into a saint, and the result is the fullest portrait of her in fiction.

Perfect for: Readers who want one big book about Mary, Queen of Scots.

5. Rizzio by Denise Mina (2021)

Setting: Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, 9 March 1566

On one evening in 1566, a group of conspirators burst into the queen’s supper room at Holyrood to murder David Rizzio, her Italian secretary. They suspect he is her lover. Mary’s estranged husband, Lord Darnley, insists the killing must happen in front of the heavily pregnant queen.

Denise Mina is one of Scotland’s leading crime writers, and she tells this real murder as a tight, fast novella that can be read in an evening. It was the first of Polygon’s Darkland Tales, a series in which Scottish writers retell moments from the nation’s history and legend.

Perfect for: Readers who want a short, gripping way into Mary’s reign.

Witches and the Seventeenth Century

6. Corrag by Susan Fletcher (2010)

Setting: The Scottish Highlands, 1692

Corrag is a young Highland woman, jailed as a witch and waiting to be burned. Charles Leslie, an Irish Jacobite, comes to see her because she witnessed the Massacre of Glencoe and he wants her account. Corrag agrees, but only if she can tell her whole story her own way.

The novel is lyrical and close to the land, full of mountains, weather and animals, and Corrag’s voice is unforgettable. Look out for the other titles: the UK paperback was renamed Witch Light, and a later US edition is called The Highland Witch.

Perfect for: Readers who loved Burial Rites or Hamnet.

7. The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld (2020)

Setting: North Berwick, from the early 1700s to the present day

Three women live on the same stretch of coast, facing the Bass Rock across the water. In the early 1700s, Sarah is accused of witchcraft. Just after the Second World War, Ruth marries a widower and moves into his house. In the present day, Viv is clearing out that same house after Ruth’s death.

Wyld weaves the three stories together into a powerful novel about the violence done to women, and how it echoes through the centuries. It won the Stella Prize in 2021. Only part of the book is set in the past, but its seventeenth and eighteenth century chapters are some of the most vivid on this list. For more novels led by women, see our Best Female Lead Historical Fiction list.

Perfect for: Readers who like books told across several timelines.

The Jacobite Age

8. Rob Roy by Walter Scott (1817)

Setting: Northern England and the Highlands, around 1715

Frank Osbaldistone refuses to join his father’s London business and is sent off in disgrace to his uncle’s house in Northumberland. His scheming cousin Rashleigh takes his place in the firm and soon puts it in danger. Setting things right draws Frank north into Scotland and into the company of the outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor.

Scott’s novel came out at the end of 1817 (the title page says 1818), and it made Rob Roy a legend. The story is set on the eve of the first Jacobite rising, and the Highland chapters are still thrilling two centuries later. Note that the famous 1995 film with Liam Neeson tells a different story and is not based on the novel.

Perfect for: Readers who want to try Walter Scott at his most exciting.

9. Waverley by Walter Scott (1814)

Setting: Scotland, 1745 to 1746

Edward Waverley is a young English officer posted to Scotland. A visit to his family’s old friend, the Baron Bradwardine, leads him into the Highlands and towards the cause of Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender.

Waverley was published anonymously in 1814 and became a sensation. It is often called the first historical novel, and its success launched a whole series of novels that changed how Europe saw Scotland. The opening chapters are slow, but once Waverley reaches the Highlands, the book finds its pace.

Perfect for: Readers who want to see where historical fiction began.

10. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (1991)

Setting: Inverness and the Highlands, 1743

Just after the Second World War, former combat nurse Claire Randall is on a second honeymoon in Inverness with her husband Frank. She touches a standing stone at Craigh na Dun and finds herself thrown back two hundred years, into a Scotland of clan feuds, Redcoats and rising Jacobite plots.

Outlander mixes romance, adventure, time travel and real history, and it has turned millions of readers into fans of Scotland. It won the RITA Award for best romance, and the Starz TV series began in 2014. In the UK it was first published as Cross Stitch. Our Outlander reading order lists the whole series, and our Diana Gabaldon author page covers her other books.

Perfect for: Readers who want romance and adventure in equal measure.

11. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

Setting: The Lowlands, the Hebrides and the Highlands, 1751

David Balfour is seventeen, an orphan with no money, when he goes to ask for help from his miserly uncle Ebenezer at the House of Shaws. His uncle betrays him, and David is kidnapped aboard a ship bound for the Carolinas. At sea he meets Alan Breck Stewart, a proud Jacobite, and the two are soon on the run across the Highlands together.

Stevenson builds the story around a real crime, the Appin murder of 1752, which he moves to 1751. It is a great adventure story, but also a sharp portrait of a country still split by the 1745 rising. It has been filmed many times, including Disney’s 1948 version and a 1971 film with Michael Caine.

Perfect for: Readers of any age who want a classic chase across the Highlands.

12. The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson (1889)

Setting: Scotland, France, India and colonial America, 1745 to 1764

In 1745, the two sons of the Laird of Durrisdeer agree to back opposite sides in the Jacobite rising, so that the family estate is safe whoever wins. A coin toss decides it: the elder son, the Master, rides out with the rebels, while his younger brother Henry stays home loyal to King George. The bitter rivalry that follows is told by the family steward, Ephraim Mackellar.

This is Stevenson’s darkest novel, a story of two brothers and the hatred between them, which carries the reader from Scotland to the wilderness of North America. Errol Flynn starred in the 1953 film.

Perfect for: Readers who like their adventure stories dark and full of moral doubt.

The Clearances and the Nineteenth Century

13. Consider the Lilies by Iain Crichton Smith (1968)

Setting: Sutherland, early nineteenth century

Mrs Scott is an elderly widow who has lived her whole life in the same Highland glen. When the factor Patrick Sellar, a real figure of the Clearances, tells her she must leave her home, she turns for help to the minister of her church. His answer shakes her faith.

Crichton Smith was a poet who wrote in both English and Gaelic, and this short novel is quiet, precise and deeply moving. It is the best introduction in fiction to the Highland Clearances, when thousands of families were forced off the land to make way for sheep.

Perfect for: Readers who want a short, powerful novel about the Clearances.

14. The Silver Darlings by Neil M. Gunn (1941)

Setting: The Caithness and Sutherland coast, early 1800s

Catrine’s young husband is seized by a naval press gang, and she is left to raise their son, Finn, alone. Their community has been cleared off the land and is turning to the sea, and to the new boom in herring fishing. The “silver darlings” of the title are the herring.

Gunn grew up in Dunbeath, a fishing village on this coast, and he writes about the sea, the boats and the people with real love. The novel is a classic of the Scottish Renaissance and a fine story of a boy growing up.

Perfect for: Readers who love stories of the sea and of close communities.

15. The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry (2018)

Setting: Edinburgh, 1847

Will Raven is a medical student who becomes apprentice to Dr James Young Simpson, a famous Edinburgh obstetrician. Simpson’s housemaid, Sarah Fisher, has all of Raven’s intelligence and none of his privileges. When women are found dead across the Old Town, the two are drawn together to find out why.

Ambrose Parry is the pen name of crime writer Chris Brookmyre and his wife, the anaesthetist Marisa Haetzman, whose research into the history of medicine shaped the book. It is the first of the Raven and Fisher mysteries. Our Best Historical Mystery Fiction list has more.

Perfect for: Readers who like Victorian crime with plenty of medical detail.

16. Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet (2025)

Setting: Benbecula, Outer Hebrides, 1857

On 9 July 1857, on the remote island of Benbecula, a labourer named Angus MacPhee killed his father, mother and aunt. He was found criminally insane and spent the rest of his life locked up. Burnet tells this true story through the eyes of Angus’s older brother, Malcolm, who is shunned by the island and haunted by what happened.

The novel is short, dark and claustrophobic. It was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize 2026, where the judges compared it to James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Perfect for: Readers who like historical crime with real menace.

17. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet (2015)

Setting: Culduie, Wester Ross, 1869

In 1869, a brutal triple murder shocks a tiny Highland township. Seventeen year old Roderick Macrae is arrested and awaits trial. The novel is presented as a set of documents found in an archive, including Roddy’s own account of what happened, written from his prison cell.

His Bloody Project was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2016 and won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year the same year. It is a crime novel, a courtroom drama and a portrait of a poor crofting community all at once. Burnet leaves the reader to decide how far to trust each document.

Perfect for: Readers who like puzzles and unreliable narrators.

The Twentieth Century

18. Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1932)

Setting: The Mearns, north east Scotland, early twentieth century to the First World War

Chris Guthrie grows up on a hard working farm in the parish of Kinraddie. She is torn between her love of the land and the people around her, and her longing for books and learning. Around her, an old way of rural life is coming to an end.

Sunset Song is the first book of A Scots Quair, and it was voted Scotland’s favourite book in a 2016 poll. Gibbon writes in a rhythmic English shaped by the Scots spoken in the Mearns, and once you catch its music, it is hard to put down. Terence Davies made a film of it in 2015. For more set in this period, see our WW1 Historical Fiction hub.

Perfect for: Readers who want the great classic of Scottish fiction.

19. The Two Roberts by Damian Barr (2025)

Setting: Glasgow and wartime Europe, from 1933

On his first day at Glasgow School of Art in 1933, Robert MacBryde meets Robert Colquhoun, and from then on the two are never apart. Damian Barr, a Scottish writer and broadcaster, tells the real story of the two painters, their art, their class and the love they had to hide, as their talent carries them across a Europe heading for war.

The Two Roberts was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize 2026. It is a moving reminder that Scottish history includes the lives that were long left out of it.

Perfect for: Readers who love novels about artists and hidden love stories.

Honourable Mentions

These books didn’t make the numbered list, but they are well worth reading.

The Disorderly Knights (1966) and Checkmate (1975) by Dorothy Dunnett. The third and sixth books of the Lymond Chronicles. Read the series in order, starting with The Game of Kings.
The Lost Queen (2018) by Signe Pike. Set in sixth century Scotland, it follows Languoreth, a queen in the kingdom of Strathclyde, and the twin brother who would become the legendary Merlin. See our Best Arthurian Historical Fiction list for more.
Three Sisters, Three Queens (2016) by Philippa Gregory. Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, goes north to become Queen of Scotland.
The Other Queen (2008) by Philippa Gregory. Mary, Queen of Scots, in captivity in England after her flight from Scotland.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Scottish historical fiction book?

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is the most popular, and the best start for readers who like romance and adventure. For a classic, Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon was voted Scotland’s favourite book in 2016. For a literary adventure, Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings is hard to beat.

What was the first Scottish historical novel?

Walter Scott’s Waverley, published in 1814, is often called the first historical novel of all, not only the first Scottish one. Its success led Scott to write a whole series of novels set in Scotland’s past, including Rob Roy.

What are the best novels about Mary, Queen of Scots?

Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George is the fullest account of her life in fiction. Rizzio by Denise Mina is a short, gripping novella about one night of her reign, and The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett is set in Scotland during her childhood.

What are the best novels about Robert the Bruce?

Nigel Tranter’s Bruce trilogy, which begins with The Steps to the Empty Throne, is the classic choice. Tranter follows the historical record closely and covers Bruce’s whole struggle for the crown and for Scottish independence.

Are there good novels about the Highland Clearances?

Yes. Consider the Lilies by Iain Crichton Smith is a short and moving novel about an old woman facing eviction in Sutherland. The Silver Darlings by Neil M. Gunn follows a community that has been cleared from the land and turns to herring fishing.

Are there Scottish historical crime novels?

Several. His Bloody Project and Benbecula, both by Graeme Macrae Burnet, are based on Highland murders in the nineteenth century. The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry is a Victorian mystery set in Edinburgh, and Rizzio by Denise Mina retells a famous royal murder.

Is Outlander historically accurate?

Outlander is a time travel romance, so the story itself is fiction, but Diana Gabaldon researched the Highlands of the 1740s carefully. The clans, the Jacobite politics and the daily life of the period are built on real history, even when the characters are invented.

What should I read after this list?

For more about the 1715 and 1745 risings, see our Best Jacobite Historical Fiction list. Our Dorothy Dunnett and Diana Gabaldon author pages cover both writers in full, and our Medieval Europe hub has more novels set in the age of Macbeth and Bruce.