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

‘A powerfully clear account . . . Highly recommended for anyone interested in the colonial history of Scotland’ – Paterson Joseph, actor and author of the award-winning The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho

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. Award-winning novelist Val McDermid and Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp unite in this revelatory novella to trace the story of Scotland’s only trading colony, 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.