Ropes of Sand

The Scottish Isles and the turmoil of India in rebellion collide, testing the bonds of love for a family wracked by grief and guilt.

Murdo Nicholson, brought up in the strict confines of the Free Church of Scotland in the Western Isles and destined to be a minister, runs away to embark on a career at sea with the East India Company.

This life opens new worlds and opportunities, but tragedy turns him back, with his wife and young daughter, to the Islands and religion of his childhood, and the suffering brought on by the Highland Potato Famine of 1846.

His daughter, Lexy, finds her own journey through life mirroring that of her father’s as she travels from the islands of Scotland, through London, and into India. Wealth and comfort are not what she expected, but everything is stripped away with the violent outbreak of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Can Lexy draw solace from a growing awareness of the parallel paths her family’s lives have run?

Read it on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo

Patience Stout was born in Hillingdon and educated in Scotland and Colston’s Girls’ School in Bristol. On completion of her O levels, Patience’s family moved to Raasay in the Inner Hebrides. Having discovered that helping out on the family farm on a remote island off the Scottish mainland was not ideal for a seventeen year-old, she joined the army. Patience married four years later into an army family and raised two daughters.

When the girls were away at boarding school, Patience trained to be a nurse, stepping into midwifery and health visiting.

Always interested in the Orient, Patience travelled to India, China and the Middle East. Retiring to Cyprus, she enjoyed studying Indian history and the East India Company. Combining her experience of the Hebrides with her love of India and the ‘John company', she wrote this historical novel.