At long last, Smoked by Scotch is here! It’s the eighth novel in the Bohemia Bartenders Mysteries (how can there be eight already?), and it brings mixologist Pepper Revelle and her friends to Scotland to face stars, stalkers and suspects. It’s full of giggles and twists (in fact, if you like surprises, you might want to avoid reading reviews, because a couple already have spoilers). It’s also packed with beautiful real locations, particularly in Scotland’s Orkney Islands.
I love all the mysteries for different reasons. I always put my heart into them, not to mention lots of research. They’re also informed by travel, and Smoked by Scotch is full of wonderful places I got to experience in the summer of 2023. While the book opens in Edinburgh, most of it takes place in Orkney.
A dear childhood friend has told me about Orkney for years. Her mother grew up there, and I heard the stories but didn’t understand how magical it was until I got there. My husband and I met her and her husband in Kirkwall, and thanks especially to her cousin Magnus, who drove us all over creation, we got to see several of the fascinating historical sites, often at hours when other tourists weren’t there.
Of course, in summer, when we were there, there were a lot of hours of daylight to see everything, thanks to the northern latitude — equivalent to Anchorage or southern Greenland. In fact, it’s never really that dark during the short night.
Every site was captivating, from multiple circles of standing stones to Maeshowe, a tomb around 5,000 years old … from ancient settlement Skara Brae to the island that is the Brough of Birsay, with its stunning cliffs and crossing that vanishes into the sea at high tide. The book trailer shows some of the scenery, as do the photos here.
There are lots of mysteries set in Scotland and even some set in Orkney, though they appear to be more serious than mine. (I’ll be adding them to my TBR list.) My Bohemia Bartenders find lots of adventure (and humor) in these places, and I hope you will too.
Here are a few photos from Orkney (and one from Edinburgh) so you can get a look at some of the settings in the book. Click to see larger versions and captions.
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