About My Book 'Drystone - A Life Rebuilt'

Drystone – A Life Rebuilt is a memoir, but it’s not really about drystone walling. It’s about the past and the hard work of rebuilding a life on your own terms.

I spent years running—from places, people, and parts of myself. But chaos always followed.

Growing up in the shadow of my family’s brutal experiences of racism, I faced my own—dodging racial slurs and pennies thrown by school bullies. I felt connected to the land and the stone beneath my feet, but not the people around me. By fifteen, I was drinking whatever was handed to me, drawn to the easy escape of alcohol, already drifting from the life I had imagined for myself.

A boyfriend? Cruel and controlling.
University? Tried and failed. Three times.
Then marriage and motherhood by twenty-one.

Through it all, I kept going—not gracefully, but going all the same.

In my thirties, I moved to rural Scotland, hoping to find peace. Instead, in the space and silence, I was forced to confront everything I had tried to leave behind: racism, trauma, undiagnosed ADHD, addiction, and the stark realities of raising two daughters amidst it all.

Healing In Nature

Set against the landscapes of Scotland—from the vast Flow Country in Caithness to the hills and fields of Perthshire—this memoir weaves together personal reflection, nature writing, and social commentary, framed by the steady, grounding work of drystone walling.

Drystone – A Life Rebuilt explores the hard work of rebuilding and nature’s quiet, grounding power—not as a magical cure, but as a place to find clarity.

And while the book isn’t about drystone walling, it isn’t just a backdrop either—it shapes the book itself. Each chapter is structured around a different part of a drystone wall, from the foundations to the hearting to the cope stones, mirroring the process of rebuilding a life. The work of walling—choosing the right stones, finding balance, accepting imperfections—became an unexpected framework for understanding my own story.

Not a Neat Redemption Story

Healing isn’t a finish line. It’s slow, deliberate work in a world that refuses to change. Like drystone walling, it’s about persistence, not perfection.

This book is both deeply personal and profoundly universal—a story about what is passed to us and what we choose for ourselves. And it's a book for readers looking for something more than nature’s gentle healing. 

Through unflinching honesty and unexpected humour, Drystone - A Life Rebuilt acknowledges that some wounds never fully heal, racism persists, mental health struggles don’t vanish with a diagnosis, relationships remain imperfect, and raising children while healing yourself is complicated. For me, recovery isn’t a before-and-after story—it’s an ongoing process, slow and deeply human.

Drystone offers a clear and unsentimental take on trauma and recovery—one that doesn’t pretend healing is neat, or that the world makes it easy.

Beyond Recovery—Race, Class, Land, and Family

But Drystone isn’t just a story about recovery—it’s about race and belonging, class, the land. Nature isn’t always a place of escape, and the land isn’t just for fleeting feelings of wonder—for many, it’s for life, for work.

This is also a book about family—the kind anyone can recognise—where, even with the best intentions, love and harm are inseparable, closeness and distance exist together, all at once, and the past often looms large.

For those who don’t see themselves in the linear, wrapped-up-in-a-bow type of recovery stories, Drystone is something different. It tells the messy, unfiltered truth. It’s raw. It’s angry. It’s tender. It’s lucid. It’s about rebuilding—however you can, with whatever you have, one step, or one stone, at a time.

This book, this cover—it hasn’t been easy. But now it’s heading into the world!

Drystone – A Life Rebuilt is set to be released on August 7, 2025.

Where to Pre-Order

I know people buy books wherever works for them, and no judgment here—whether that’s a local indie, an online shop, or, yeah, Amazon. If you want to pre-order, here’s how:

Your local bookshop – Ask them—whether in person, over the phone, or by messaging them online. If they don’t have my book listed yet, they can order it using the ISBN: 978-1846976469. We’re still waiting on news about foreign publication and distribution, but this method of pre-ordering might be possible outside the UK too—just check with your local indy bookstore.

Bookshop.org & Hive (UK readers) – These sites let you order online while supporting independent bookshops.

Direct from my publisher - Birlinn/Polygon are an independent Scottish publishing house.

Chain bookshops - Waterstones etc

Amazon & Other Online Retailers – If this is your usual way of buying books, it will be listed there too.

For those in Europe - Right now it would appear Waterstones are your best bet as they offer international shipping. Brexit has made things difficult, and my publisher is not currently shipping to Europe, but I hope to be able to provide more options soon!

For those in the rest of the world - You can order from Birlinn, my publisher.