Shetland: Britain's most northerly outpost. A land of Bronze Age Man, the Vikings, the Scottish merchant-lairds. But what of the future? It is May 3013. Nathan Dei, ornithologist, photographer, philosopher and reluctant political animal, gets embroiled in the debate on Scottish independence. The vote is more than a year away, and already he's sick of the whole thing. But living in Shetland, it's hard to escape. In between his birding expeditions, he starts to think how his adopted home should navigate this shake-up. What would be the best outcome? There is North Sea oil, of course, but that's less than half the story. His father was a member of the Shetland Islands Council, his beautiful partner works for them, and Nathan is gradually sucked into the fray. He starts to feel driven to engage, not least because of old friends, loyalties. And there is always the nagging question: How would those old friends have felt about letting this chance to better their homeland's future pass them by? How would previous generations of Islanders, those who'd been oppressed, 'cleared', treated as human impedimenta, have viewed such a betrayal?

Author Biography

Michael James, a pseudonym, was born and brought up in the Corbridge-Hexham area of Northumberland. He was educated at Hexham Grammar School and is a graduate of the University of Manchester. He has worked in both public and private sectors; as a planning director, a hotel owner, an oil company executive and a director of an events management company. His first wife, also a Northumbrian, died in 1997, and he has remarried and is now living in Scotland. He has three children and four grandchildren, and enjoys reading, writing, painting (pictures, not walls), wildlife and sport (notably golf). 'The Pleasure Dome' was his first book; 'Secession' (set in the Holy Island of Lindisfarne) his second; 'Winds of Change' his third; 'Caransay' (set on a fictitious Atlantic island) his fourth; and 'Wolf's Nick' (a venture into the true crime genre) his fifth. His books are available in print and digital format on Amazon and Kindle.