just a little bit short of a romance novel. Easy summer read without any deep characters. Eventually everything is perfect and all characters are living happily ever after. ( )

This is my first Isla Dewar book, but I doubt it will be my last. This is the tale of Iris Chisholm, whose husband dies and leaves her high and dry with debts galore. She takes her two teenage children to live in a remote highland glen, where she can teach at the local school and live in the house that comes with the job.

Over the year covered in the book, Iris becomes very involved with the community of Green Cairns, and I loved the characters that popped up in the book, both children and adults.

I found this to be a very pleasant read. It flowed nicely and kept me turning the pages quickly to find out what happened next. It's a gentle tale of remote rural life in Scotland in the 1960s, but Iris is a feisty and forthright character. Very enjoyable. ( )

Loved this book! ( )

A very quiet, slow-moving story of a woman who discovers secrets after her husband dies. When she has to live with the consequences of his actions, it disrupts the fabric of family that is left. ( )

When Iris moves into the country after her husband's unexpected death in the late 1960's, she has no idea that her new position as the local school's 'Missie' will reshape her life. The decision is one she makes out of desperation after she loses her home due to her husband's secret gambling habits. Unwillingly, she wakes each morning in a beautiful place, longing for her city home, and for human touch.

Dewar's warm, full characters make 'Dancing in the Distant Place' a rich novel, one that induces laughter, watery eyes and statements such as 'No! Don't do that!' She writes with graceful, strong prose, and possesses an uncommon ability to paint her characters as well as she does the country scenery in Scotland. Her world and the lives in it are convincing - those rare kind of characters one could recognise walking down the street.

There's little Colin - a self-imposed mute whose love for the little things, and quiet fight against the world, is precious to read. There's Emily, whose surge into free love has met with the bitter truth that she is just homesick and wants to eat more than potatoes and lentils. Michael likes to drive with his eyes closed along the country roads, because he knows and loves them so well. And Sophy, Iris's teenage daughter, thinks death is a very romantic thing indeed.

This is definitely one of those kind of books that will stay with me for a long time, and I'm very pleased to discover she has six more books out there for me to get my greedy little hands on.