Dear Reader,
Thank you for listening to Must Love Kilts!
I hope you enjoyed Traci and Iain! Keep scrolling to read my historical note about the events in the book. And if you join my mailing list for the latest news, I’ll send you deleted scenes as a thank you! If you realllly loved it, and want to help pimp my books and get free content and be the first to hear of news, you can join my fan group, Angela’s Time-Traveling Steampunk Regency Assassins!
Want some visuals? While drafting and revising, I created a Pinterest board to help visualize and brainstorm, and it includes not only some historic clothing, but also which actor I pictured for Iain 🙂
Please feel free to reach out to me. I love to hear from readers about what they loved (or didn’t) about my books, so drop me a line if you’d like at angela@angelaquarles.com or find me on twitter at @angelaquarles, or on my Facebook page.
And now a big favor. Readers like you make it possible for writers to do what they love, spin tales! Thank you for your support. If you enjoyed Must Love Kilts, I hope you’ll take a moment to share your enthusiasm with other readers by posting a review. Discoverability for new authors like me is a challenge and every review helps connect a reader to a book they might enjoy. I appreciate any review, positive or negative, so if you have a moment to post one, even just a line or two about what you thought of the story, on Audible, or wherever your purchased the audiobook, I’d be grateful! The more reviews a book receives, the more other readers are willing to take a chance on a new author. It also helps a reader decide whether a book is for them or not. Regardless, I thank you for listening! If you do leave a review, send me an email at angela@angelaquarles.com so I can personally thank you, or tweet me @angelaquarles.
Also by Angela Quarles
Beer and Groping in Las Vegas
an erotic geek romantic comedy
Steam Me Up, Rawley
a steampunk romance
Must Love Breeches
Book One in the Must Love series
Must Love Chainmail
Book Two in the Must Love series
Must Love Kilts
Book Three in the Must Love series
Coming 2017
Must Love More Kilts
Book Four in the Must Love series
Join my mailing list to be among the first to hear of its release!
Historical Note
I strived to be as authentic as possible in the constraints of the story, but there were some liberties I took with the historical record. The biggest is that Dundee, who later became known as Bonnie Dundee, died at the Battle of Killiecrankie, dooming the Jacobite cause for another generation.
Also, due to the destruction of villages and records during the Highland Clearances—an awful, awful time in the history of the Scottish Highlands that the region hasn’t fully recovered from—it’s impossible to know whether there was an inn in 1689 where the current Cluanie Inn currently stands.
I hope that sticklers will also forgive me for the liberties I took with the custom of handfasting. Handfasting was actually a Lowland Scots tradition, not Highland, though the Highlanders had a similar tradition called a Trial Marriage. However, since that only happens once a year, and it was later than the events of the Battle of Killiecrankie, I took the liberty of borrowing the Lowland Scots tradition. And as far as that tradition goes, accounts vary, but I found multiple sources that said that witnesses were not needed, though it did make it easier to prove.
While the MacCowans were a sept of the MacDonells of Glengarry, the persons in this story are fiction, as is Dungarbh, which I set on the cluster of islands visible from the shores of Loch Garry. This island cluster is called Garbh Eilean, meaning “rough isle,” so that’s how I came up with the name for the MacCowan’s keep Dungarbh, meaning “rough fort.”
The MacDonell chief and his son Alasdair are historical personages, and the chief did send his son in his stead to the Battle of Killiecrankie to hedge his bets. Also, Cameron of Lochiel was a historical person, and the story of him biting out the throat of a British soldier can be found in several places, though it might be apocryphal. And there was a little cameo of the famous Rob Roy, who fought at the Battle of Killiecrankie. Some sources I found said his father was still alive and at the battle too, so I placed him there.
I’ve read many Scottish history books, but I found the books Warriors of the Word, by Michael Newton, and Scottish Customs: From the Cradle to the Grave, by Margaret Bennet especially helpful. It was during this reading that I discovered that Highlanders have long used the term kale-eaters to disparage Lowlanders, where eating kale was popular.
About the Author
Angela Quarles is a RWA RITA® award-winning and USA Today bestselling author of time travel and steampunk romance. Library Journal named her steampunk, Steam Me Up, Rawley, Best Self-Published Romance of 2015 and Must Love Chainmail won the 2016 RITA® Award in the paranormal category, the first indie to win in that category. Angela loves history, folklore, and family history and combined it with her active imagination to write stories of romance and adventure.