Join internationally bestselling author Val McDermid and Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp for an illuminating conversation about their new co-authored novella, This Door of the Seas.

The Darien Venture was the singular event at the end of the seventeenth century that fundamentally altered Scotland’s future.

It took place on the other side of the world, amid the jungle-coastline at the junction between the continents of North and South America. And most of us know next to nothing about it.

Now it’s time to remedy that. In this revelatory novella, the story of Scotland’s only trading colony is traced, which turned from a dream of prosperity to a nightmare that bankrupted an already impoverished nation and propelled it towards political union with England.

Written as a series of letters home from expedition scientist Dr James Wallace to his wife Eliza and Sir Robert Sibbald, the first Geographer Royal, this epistolary tale offers a devastating account of the forces that doomed the endeavour and completely changed the history of the British Isles in the process.

7:00pm - 8:00pm

Ticket options: Ticket only & Ticket and Book (to be collected at event)