Book Recommendation: Midnight on the Scottish Shore by Sarah Sundin
Sarah Sundin delivers another page-turner packed with WWII detail! Read the ReviewMidnight on the Scottish Shore by Sarah Sundin
Sarah Sundin is an auto-buy author for me, so I dove into this book with little knowledge of what to expect, except for, well, the Scottish setting in the title and a vague understanding that espionage was involved. Imagine my delight when I was drawn into a compelling spy story featuring double agents, a lighthouse (my favourite) and a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance.
The plot revolves around Dutch resistance member Cilla van der Zee, who becomes a Nazi agent as a foolhardy means to escape her occupied home. On her arrival in Britain, she is immediately captured by Royal Navy Lt Lachlan Mackenzie and turned over to MI5. She agrees to work as a double agent, transmitting approved messages about ship movements and other local information back to Germany. Cilla faces a difficult battle to prove to her MI5 handlers her loyalty to the Allies at the same time as protecting her friends and family back home. Amid the duplicity, Cilla is drawn to the steady, strong, and supremely Scottish Lieutenant Mackenzie, who’s been ordered to help her. But this is war and nothing is simple.
Here are three things I loved
The moral conflict: Cilla and Lachlan are both essentially good characters to whom deception, disloyalty and duplicity do not come easily. Both are trapped in one way or another. Cilla has no love for the Nazis but cannot convince anyone of that. Lachlan has no desire to work with MI5, but has to face the string of moral compromises that his situation brings on. The complex layers of moral conflict within each of these characters are well drawn and compel the reader through the book for the first quarter.
The Scottish hero: Sigh. I do love a Scottish hero with red hair and a strong moral compass (I even wrote one as my hero in These Long Shadows, coming out in March!). Goodness is such an underrated quality hero, and Lachlan is a good man forced to help Cilla lie and sabotage the country he loves. Sundin hits all the right Scottish ‘beats’ from Hogmanay to Robbie Burns quotes…and when he wraps her in his plaid I almost swooned.
The black moment: The promise (and quite, frankly, joy) of a romance is a happily ever after so of course you expect that despite the obstacles to true love, everything will work out in the wash. However, I don’t think I’ve ever been as thoroughly convinced by a “black moment” in a romance story as I was by this one. I honestly didn’t think they were going to make it. To which I say, “Well played, Miss Sundin. Well played.”
Midnight on the Scottish Shore releases on 4 February 2025. Get it from Amazon US, Amazon Australia, or the usual bookish places. I was provided an advanced copy of Midnight on the Scottish Shore by Netgalley, but this didn’t influence my review.
