Strathmore: A Novel

by Jessica Stirling

Joining the household staff of Houston Lamont, baronial owner of the chief industry of Blackwell, Scotland, working-class beauty Mirrin Stalker is soon caught between loyalty to her labor-leader father and passionate love for the married Lamont

307 pages, Hardcover

First published December 28, 1975

About the author

A pseudonym used by Hugh C. Rae, initially in collaboration with Peggie Coghlan and later alone.

Hugh Crauford Rae was born on November 22, 1935 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, son of Isobel and Robert Rae. He published his first stories aged 11 in the Robin comic, winning a cricket bat the same year in a children’s writing competition. After graduating from secondary school, he worked as an assistant in the antiquarian department of John Smith's bookshop. At work, he met her future wife, Elizabeth. Published since 1963, he started to wrote suspense novels as Hugh C. Rae, but he also used the pseudonyms of Robert Crawford, R.B. Houston, Stuart Stern (with S. Ungar) and James Albany. On 1973, his novel "The Shooting Gallery" was nominee by the Edgar Award. On 1974, he wrote the first few romance novels with Peggie Coghlan, using the popular pseudonym Jessica Stirling. However, when she retired 7 years after the first book was published, he continued writing more than 30 on his own, and also as Caroline Crosby. His female pseudonyms first became widely known in 1999, when "The Wind from the Hills" was shortlisted for Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Widowed nine years ago, Hugh died on September 24, 2014 at the age of 78.

Reviews

[Tracie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strathmore written by Scottish author Hugh C. Rae under the pseudonym Jessica Stirling.
I like the Jessica Sirling novels but of those I read this is my least favorite though it still warranted 2&1/2 to 3 stars.
It's the 1875 story of Mirran a coliers daughter who becomes housekeeper to the married coal master.
It's an upstairs, downstairs,class difference with affair or romance story.
Personally, I don't think dislike of ones wife or employer in the person of Edith gives anyone the right to commit adultery, and there does come a surprising twist and price to pay for the people involved.
This is an interesting tale of the working people of Blacklaw and the powerful family within the mansion of Strathmore during Victorian times. Stirling's historical fiction tales are always better than a Harlequin romance in my opinion.

[Kimberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm in a book discussion group at the library and I am easily, by at least twenty years, the youngest member of the group. This is kind of cool sometimes because I hear about books and authors that the ladies loved when they were younger. One of the authors mentioned at one of our meetings was Jessica Stirling. Strathmore was okay. The ending was predictable.

[Sandy Snyders-Wright-Esser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good fast read.