The Winter Isles

In twelfth-century western Scotland, Somerled grows from the son of an ageing chieftain into a warrior capable of challenging the Norse-Gaelic rulers of the Isles. The novel follows his efforts to regain family power, forge alliances and win authority across Argyll and the Hebrides, where political legitimacy depends as much on kinship and marriage as on ships and armed followers.

Somerled is a historical figure whose documented career culminated in his dominance of much of the Isles and his death at Renfrew in 1164, but the surviving record of his early life is fragmentary. Senior therefore builds a fictional personal story around the known political framework; the heroine Eimhear and many private relationships and incidents are invented. The result is biographical historical fiction rather than a literal biography of Somerled.