Val McDermid and Jo Sharp: This Door of the Seas…

I’m hearing from two brilliant women, and minds, who’ve joined forces to explore a wild - and under-documented, and misunderstood - chapter in Scottish history… 

In their superb new novella, This Door of the Seas, best-selling writer Val McDermid has teamed up with Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp - they’re partners in crime, and partners in life - as they trace the journey and tale of the Darien venture… 

It saw more than 2000 Scots sail into the unknown at the end of the seventeenth century, toward a horizon of hope and prosperity - but the challenges of Darien’s jungle-coastline, at the junction of North and South America, transpired to offer anything but that. 

It would eventually upturn the future of Scotland, bankrupting an already impoverished nation, and propelling it towards political union with England… 

This Door of the Seas is the latest in Birlinn’s excellent Darkland Tales, in which some of Scotland’s best-loved writers re-imagine stories from Scottish history, myth and legend through a contemporary lens - Val and I chatted about her Queen Macbeth Darkland Tale on a previous episode of A Kick Up The Arts…

Val and Jo’s book is written as a series of letters home from expedition scientist Dr James Wallace - as addressed to his wife Eliza and to Sir Robert Sibbald, the very first Geographer Royal - and as uncovered by his ancestor, Beth Wallace, in the Spring of 2026...

Val and Jo came through to Bridge of Allan to tell me all about it... Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or via the icons at the top and bottom of this page - or right here!