Autumn has been a rather unsettling season. My daughter Emily has started university and moved into a flat in Glasgow. Empty nest syndrome has set in, for both me and the cat, who is missing her terribly, and make much more noise about it than I do.

The October holiday week rushed past so quickly that I didn’t achieved the transformation I’d hoped to make in the house and garden. The drive is half-gravelled, the grass is a mass of soggy fallen leaves, the gutters are clogged and the roof tiles are thick with moss. My weekends between now and Christmas are going to be busy.

It feels as though we are hurtling towards winter, now that the trees are almost bare and there is a definite chill in the air. The shops are gearing up for Hallowe’en and Christmas. At school, the Nativity play rehearsals will soon be underway.

But I haven’t been idle this autumn. After months of polishing, Guardians of the Wild Unicorns is ready for proof reading and is on target for publication on 21st of February 2019! The cover design looks fantastic and I can’t wait to hold the finished book in my hands. It has been such a fun, magical story to write. My inspiration came from a newspaper article about the unicorn being Scotland’s national animal. My first thought was that it was bizarre to have a mythical creature as a national animal and my second thought was…what if unicorns weren’t mythical? What if they were real? What if a herd of unicorns existed in the Scottish Highlands and what if they were being poached for their horns, as rhinos are in Africa, and brought to the brink of extinction? And what if two children, on a Primary 7 residential trip,  found out about the herd and decided to try and save the last wild unicorns?

Lewis is cold, wet and miserable on his school residential trip in the Highlands of Scotland. The last thing he expects to see is a mythical creature galloping across the bleak moorland. Unicorns aren’t real… are they? Lewis and his best friend Rhona find themselves caught up in a dangerous adventure to save the world’s last herd of wild unicorns. Fighting against dark forces, battling the wild landscape, and harnessing ancient magic, can they rescue the legendary creatures in time?