- I couldn’t get through this day without making a Saint Patrick’s day post and so this evergreen mini-piece was born! I hope you enjoy these wonderful ya novels that take place in Scotland and Ireland. These are definitely all novels I hope to read in the future!
A Swift and Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd
Ireland 1984.
After Shell’s mother dies, her obsessively religious father descends into alcoholic mourning and Shell is left to care for her younger brother and sister. Her only release from the harshness of everyday life comes from her budding spiritual friendship with a naive young priest, and most importantly, her developing relationship with childhood friend, Declan, who is charming, eloquent, and persuasive. But when Declan suddenly leaves Ireland to seek his fortune in America, Shell finds herself pregnant and the center of a scandal that rocks the small community in which she lives, with repercussions across the whole country. The lives of those immediately around her will never be the same again.
This is a story of love and loss, religious belief and spirituality—it will move the hearts of any who read it.
Toward a Secret Sky by Heather Maclean
“Everywhere I go, I leave a trail of dead bodies. My parents died fighting to stop the darkness. I’ll keep fighting too, even if it means I have to die. Dying’s not half as hard as being left behind, anyway…
Evil is real. We are at war. Anyone you tells you differently is lying.”
Shortly after 17-year-old Maren Hamilton is orphaned and sent to live with grandparents she’s never met in Scotland, she receives an encrypted journal from her dead mother that makes her and everyone around her a target. It confirms that her parents were employed by a secret, international organization that’s now intent on recruiting her. As Maren works to unravel the clues left behind by her mother, a murderous madness sweeps through the local population, terrorizing her small town. Maren must decide if she’ll continue her parents’ fight or stay behind to save her friends.
With the help of Gavin, an otherworldly mercenary she’s not supposed to fall in love with, and Graham, a charming aristocrat who is entranced with her, Maren races against the clock and around the country from palatial estates with twisted labyrinths to famous cathedrals with booby-trapped subterranean crypts to stay ahead of the enemy and find a cure. Along the way, she discovers the great truth of love: that laying down your life for another isn’t as hard as watching them sacrifice everything for you.
Hush: an Irish Princesses Tale by Donna Jo Napoli
Melkorka is a princess, the first daughter of a magnificent kingdom in mediæval Ireland — but all of this is lost the day she is kidnapped and taken aboard a marauding slave ship. Thrown into a world that she has never known, alongside people that her former country’s laws regarded as less than human, Melkorka is forced to learn quickly how to survive. Taking a vow of silence, however, she finds herself an object of fascination to her captors and masters, and soon realizes that any power, no matter how little, can make a difference.
Based on an ancient Icelandic saga, award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli has crafted a heartbreaking story of a young girl who must learn to forget all that she knows and carve out a place for herself in a new world — all without speaking a word.
Doon by Carey Corp & Lorie Langdon
Veronica doesn’t think she’s going crazy. But why can’t anyone else see the mysterious blond boy who keeps popping up wherever she goes?
When her best friend, Mackenna, invites her to spend the summer in Scotland, Veronica jumps at the opportunity to leave her complicated life behind for a few months. But the Scottish countryside holds other plans. Not only has the imaginary kilted boy followed her to Alloway, she and Mackenna uncover a strange set of rings and a very unnerving letter from Mackenna’s great aunt—and when the girls test the instructions Aunt Gracie left behind, they find themselves transported to a land that defies explanation.
Doon seems like a real-life fairy tale, complete with one prince who has eyes for Mackenna and another who looks suspiciously like the boy from Veronica’s daydreams. But Doon has a dark underbelly as well. The two girls could have everything they’ve longed for… or they could end up breaking an enchantment and find themselves trapped in a world that has become a nightmare.
The New Policeman by Kate Thompson
Who knows where the time goes?
There never seems to be enough time in Kinvara, or anywhere else in Ireland for that matter. When J.J.’s mother says time’s what she really wants for her birthday, J.J. decides to find her some. He’s set himself up for an impossible task . . . until a neighbor reveals a secret. There’s a place where time stands still—at least, it’s supposed to. J.J. can make the journey there, but he’ll have to vanish from his own life to do so. Can J.J. find the leak between the two worlds? Will a shocking rumor about his family’s past come back to haunt him? And what does it all have to do with the village’s new policeman . . . ?
The Falconer by Elizabeth May
Edinburgh, 1844. Beautiful Aileana Kameron only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. In fact, she’s spent the year since her mother died developing her ability to sense the presence of Sithichean, a faery race bent on slaughtering humans. She has a secret mission: to destroy the faery who murdered her mother. But when she learns she’s a Falconer, the last in a line of female warriors and the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity, her quest for revenge gets a whole lot more complicated. The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller blends romance and action with steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read.
That’s a wrap! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post. I hope you all have had a wonderful and safe Saint Patrick’s day and that you will have a wonderful rest of the week. There seems to be a major lack of ya novels set in Ireland, let me know if you have read any that I didn’t get to mention in this list. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
-Till next time!
ALL OF THESE BOOKS SOUND SO GOD DAMN AMAZING!!! *thanks Ti, you’ve made my TBR even bigger now.*😂😍
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I’m so glad!! I love that I introduced some awesome new books in your life! I hope you get to read and enjoy some of them soon! 🤗😋
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Cute post Tiana! 😀
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Thank you! 😋
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I’ve never read any of these. I must check them out! Some sound interesting! Just curious: why did you include Scotland?
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Saint Patrick himself was actually born in England, Scotland, or Wales despite being the patron saint of Ireland. There isn’t that many ya books that take place in Ireland and I’ve always been interested in books that take place in Scotland and so I choose that one to include out of the three places where he may have been born from.
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We learnt he was born in Wales. But, I get it now. I was just confused because obviously Ireland and Scotland are not the same! Makes sense now! 🙂
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Lol, when I looked it up there were sources that said roman Britain, some wales, and some Scotland. So it seems no one really know which one it actually is. 😄
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hahah
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I love this! Great idea!
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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I bought Doon years ago and still have yet to read it! Ahhhh my TBR is out of control. Someone needs to take my Amazon credit card away from me, lol.
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😂 this is 100% me! I love this comment so much! There are too many good books out there and so little time!
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I want to read ALL OF THESE!!
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😂🤗 this makes me so happy! I hope you get to read some of them soon!
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Thanks for the list! I’ve been getting some awesome Irish book recommendations today! Which is awesome. I’ll be adding these to the TBR. Happy St. Patty’s Day! 🍀
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Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you too! 🍀🍀 I hope you have a lucky day and have a lot of books come your way!
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Aw, thanks! Same to you! 🍀😉
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The only one of these that I’ve read is The Falconer, and now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve read any books set in Ireland. Clearly I need to get to a bookshop asap!
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Same! There is a serious lack of books set in Ireland. It was really hard to actually create this list because of it.
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What a unique way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Tiana! 😀
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Thank you! It was a lot of fun to create!
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Great list! I loved Falconer and I’m looking forward to read its sequel. Toward a secret sky sounds interesting! Adding it to my tbr! Thanks for the list! 🙂
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed the list! I hope you get to read some of the other books soon!
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I’ve looked at Doon a lot because I love that cover, and I never even realized it was set in Scotland! I love reading books set outside the US, so this is a great list 😀
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Thank you! I’m glad you liked the list! Maybe it’s more incentive to finally take a chance on Doon? … I’ve heard it’s a special sort of awesome!
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Haven’t read any of these but I definitely will have to! I love Ireland (as I studied there last year) and also Scotland (because it’s AMAZING). I’d love to be transported there again haha. Outlander is also a great pick, I hear 😀 Lovely list, Tiana!
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Thank you! I hope you get to read some of these sometime soon! I have been wanting to read Outlander for the longest time, but I just haven’t been able to get to it yet sadly!
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I haven’t been able to either! Hopefully one day we’ll get to it soon though 🙂
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Thanks for making this list of books set in Scotland and Ireland. I was recently thinking about looking up books (other than Outlander) that are set in those countries. I think I may pick up Toward a Secret Sky or The Falconer in the future. Happy Reading!
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I’m glad you liked it! It was really fun to create. I hope that you enjoy the books that you pick up. I have a particular interest in Scotland literature. They are always fun to read!
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