After having picked up A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder by James de Mille several times since the start of summer (and more often than that since I first added it to my Classics Club list), I have ultimately realised that I just don’t want to read it any more. I’ve never got further than the first few pages, and there’s been nothing in it to capture my attention. I’ll replace it with some other early science fiction. Maybe Journey to the Centre of the Earth? The Time Machine? Something I’m more excited about, anyway. In the meantime, for 20 Books of Summer, I have replaced it with Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart. This is in no way replacing like for like, but Stormy Petrel felt like a good book to read on a sunny day off work, and that is what I did. I read this cover to cover in a single day, in fact – a mark of how very much I enjoyed it.

The central character is Rose Fenemore, an early career academic who researches, writes, and teaches English poetry at a Cambridge college. She also has a secret double life as science fiction author Hugh Templeton, which she finds both pleasingly lucrative and an enjoyable break from all those poems. As she gets towards the end of the academic year, she is struggling to find time for both types of writing amidst the pressure of teaching and marking responsibilities. She is longing for wide open spaces, peace and quiet, and a door that locks against both students and bosses. Genuinely, who in teaching does not get to that point at this time of year? When she comes across a listing in a newspaper for an isolated holiday cottage on Moila, just off the Isle of Mull – a cottage described as ideal for writers or artists – she cannot resist booking it for a fortnight. Her brother, a GP and keen birdwatcher, agrees to come with her, but his train is delayed, so when she arrives she is alone.

On her first night on Moila, a huge storm blows up, and Rose is startled by the noise of the door opening. Assuming it’s her brother having made it to the cottage after all, she goes downstairs to find a strange man in her living room, insisting it’s his house. This is surprising and unsettling enough – but scarcely have they introduced themselves when another stranger knocks at the door. One of the men claims to recognise the other, but this is not reciprocated. Her attempts to clear up the confusion launch Rose into a much more exciting adventure than she had intended when making her plans.

This novel is described as romantic suspense or romantic adventure, but really I think it is nature writing wearing a fancy hat. There is a mystery of sorts, but it’s almost a red herring in and of itself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it feels rather shoehorned in as a result. I didn’t care, though. The book as a whole is so joyful. Stewart’s love for the Scottish countryside and especially its wildlife pours out of every page. She was English, but she married a Scot and spent most of her adult life living between Edinburgh and Loch Awe. While Moila itself does not exist, I think it’s very likely that she based it on a real Hebridean island she knew well and loved. The specific details – someone with an extremely elaborate greenhouse set-up who is proud of getting his tomatoes earlier than anyone on the mainland; the beaten-up old Land Rover, the only car on the island, which meets the ferry every morning – all these seem like they are taken from life. I really felt like Stewart had taken me with her to Moila, to light midsummer nights, wild storms, huge flocks of birds, and big rocky outcrops (also midges. Lots of midges). Even the romance takes a secondary role compared to the island itself. There’s no big dramatic love at first sight (nor hate at first sight), just two people who are attracted and getting to know one another while working on a problem together. As a result, it was much more plausible and enjoyable than romances in books usually are.

The other thing this novel is about is Rose’s writing life, and I enjoyed that part tremendously as well. I loved this, for example, on how Rose deals with writer’s block:

From experience, I knew what to do. Write. Write anything. Bad sentences, meaningless sentences, anything to get the mind fixed again to that sheet of paper and oblivious to the “real” world. Write until the words begin to make sense, the cogs mesh, the wheels start to turn, the creaking movement quickens and becomes a smooth, oiled run, and then, with luck, exhaustion will be forgotten, and the real writing will begin. But look up once from that paper, get up from the table to make coffee, or stir the fire, even just raise your head to look outside the window, and you may as well give up until tomorrow. Or forever.

More than anything else, this book made me want to rent a self-catering cottage on a tiny Hebridean island for a couple of weeks of walking, writing, and watching wildlife. Of course, should a handsome local geologist show up and want help solving a mystery, I will not say him nay. Disappointingly, holiday cottages on Moila’s closest real-life analogues are no longer within easy financial reach of an early-career academic. (Maybe they weren’t at the time either. It’s clear that Hugh Templeton’s hugely successful science fiction is bankrolling junior academic Rose Fenemore). At least, it’s not affordable in summer, so a walking holiday is out. Going to a Scottish island for two weeks in February probably would guarantee there would be nothing to distract me from writing, though.

Anyway, if you like books where you can tell the author is having a whale of a time, or any kind of nature writing, or books about writing the writing process (or, like me, all three), I can’t recommend this highly enough. Don’t go here looking for romance except of the very mildest type, and make sure you adjust your expectations if you’re after suspenseful mystery hi-jinks, but I think this is a fantastic version of the book it is trying to be. This is only my second novel from Stewart’s extensive body of work. I’m so looking forward to reading the rest. I think I might save them up and read one per summer – should keep me going for nearly twenty years…