Latest: The Pictish Princess and other stories from before there was a Scotland is a new novel by Dolan Cummings.

In a land uneasily divided between four nations – Picts, Gaels, Britons and Northumbrians – but united by a thousand stories and a single faith (just about), a girl can dream.

Monks, mercenaries and mothers can also dream. But dreams can be dangerous. They lead to lost babies, twins torn apart, fatefully mistaken identities and unchosen transformations.

Over the course of twenty years, a handful of dreamers from all four nations cross paths, culminating in a series of revelations, confrontations and reconciliations. There are battles, sieges and political intrigue as well as love lost, love found, betrothal, betrayal and – perhaps – a kind of magic.

By now from Amazon.

Essay: In praise of our moral inheritance

“The conventional division between conservatives and progressives obscures an obvious truth: everybody wants to conserve some things, while few are against any kind of progress. The crucial questions are what is worthy of conservation, and what constitutes genuine and desirable progress.”

Read on.

Dolan’s previous novel was Gehenna: a novel of Hell and Earth, an exploration of morality, justice and the human soul, loosely modelled on Dante’s Hell and adding a modern Scottish twist to the Florentine’s tale.

His first novel was That Existential Leap: a crime story. Part bildungsroman and part psychological thriller, it is also a novel of ideas about the struggle for self-realisation and belonging in the postmodern West.

This website also hosts a selection of book reviews, essays and other articles Dolan has written over the years. You can browse by category using the drop-down menu.