Before starting this novel, I read widely about Orkney, its traditions and the chapel, as well as visiting the islands and spending hours in the wonderful, welcoming Orkney Library and Archives, which is a fount of information and the creator of the best library Twitter account I’ve come across.
For those interested in factual considerations and fictional explorations of some of the places and events covered in this book, this list provides an excellent starting point and I would begin with the superb books by Philip Paris and Donald S. Murray on the Italian Chapel.
Compton Verney, Created in Conflict – British Soldier Art (Compton Verney, 2019)
Dimbleby, Jonathan, Destiny in the Desert, The Road to El Alamein (Profile Books, 2012)
Dunn, Douglas (ed.), The Oxford Book of Scottish Short Stories (OUP, 1995)
Firth, John, Reminiscences of an Orkney Parish (Orkney National History Society, 1974)
Gardiner, Juliet, Wartime Britain (Headline, 2004)
Garfield, Simon (ed.), Our Hidden Lives (Ebury Press, 2005)
Garfield, Simon (ed.), We Are at War (Ebury Press, 2006)
Jamie, Kathleen, Findings (Sort of Books, 2005)
Liptrot, Amy, The Outrun (Canongate, 2016)
MacFarlane, Robert, Landmarks (Penguin, 2016)
MacFarlane, Robert, The Old Ways (Penguin, 2013)
Marr, Andrew, The Making of Modern Britain (Macmillan, 2009)
Marwick, Ernest, The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland (Birlinn, 2000)
Muir, Tom, Orkney Folk Tales (The History Press, 2014)
Murray, Donald S., And On This Rock – The Italian Chapel, Orkney (Birlinn, 2010)
Murray, Donald S., The Guga Hunters (Birlinn, 2015)
Murray, Donald S., The Italian Chapel, Orkney (Birlinn, 2017)
Paris, Philip, Orkney’s Italian Chapel (Black and White Publishing, 2010)
Paris, Philip, The Italian Chapel (Black and White Publishing, 2009)
Tait, Charles, The Orkney Guide Book (Tait Publishing, 2017)
Walker Marwick, Ernest, An Orkney Anthology (Scottish Academic Press, 1991: edited by John D. M. Robertson)