Karen MacLeod works in Edinburgh, not far from the Castle and Gardens. In her own time, she writes compulsively. A Glasgow University history graduate, Karen has concentrated mostly on historical fiction - her original novel of the Tudor period then blossomed into a trilogy. Her new novel, Deverell Gatehouse, is a story which spans the centuries from the 1500s to present day. Drawing not only from her rich knowledge of history, but also from everyday life around her, Karen weaves elaborate and compulsive tales of how normal people can make the most fascinating stories.
Karen MacLeod's ancestors lived on the west coast of Lewis - the westernmost edge of Europe, three miles from the Bronze Age standing stones of Callanish. One of her great-grandfathers worked on Lord Lovat’s estate at Beauly, Inverness-shire. A great grandmother left Ireland as a child for Glasgow during the potato famine and the family of her MacIntosh great-grandmother was displaced from Strathnaver in Sutherland during the Clearances. Within this rich family history, there’s a wealth of material for another novel, waiting to be mined.