Scotch Mist is a light as air romance novel with beautiful settings and an attractive heroine.
Alison Fairlee is something unusual for her time—a working woman who runs a decorating business and shares a flat with her friend Jane. She is in her mid-30s and has no thought except to make her business successful and stave off her deadbeat mother and sister. Unfortunately, her mother, Lady Caroline, who since her return from India has thought it preferable to stay with friends than to purchase or lease a home, has arrived unexpectedly, assuming Alison can put her up. Her sister Pamela is with her. Alison tells them they can only stay one night, because Jane is returning the next day.
The next day, Jane suggests that Alison go on vacation while her mother goes to a friend and Pamela takes a two-week cruise. Alison loves Scotland, so she agrees and drives off by herself. Unfortunately, when she is ready to stop, she can only find a commercial hotel, uncomfortable and cheap. She is outside the next morning when she is overheard complaining to herself about the hotel by Neil McPherson. He invites her to stay at his home, which he has converted to a hotel that he leases out to hunting and fishing parties.
Alison falls in love with Glenlochart House, which is empty, expecting guests the next day. Neil is the laird but has been unable to support the estate without this solution. Alison and Neil get along well, and he hires her to help redecorate the house, which is a bit shabby.
The next day, however, wealthy Andrew Tosh and his son Roddy arrive. Andrew is a vulgar self-made man, and Roddy spends his time chasing women and spending his father’s money. He finds talking to Alison more amusing than fishing, and Alison finds him amusing. Neil finds himself unexpectedly jealous.
Pamela returns early from her cruise after being exposed to measles and told to quarantine. Instead, she finds a letter from Alison to Jane about Glenlochart and decides to go there. She leaves immediately, sending a telegram with insufficient information about her arrival. Alison doesn’t receive the telegram until it’s almost too late to meet the train and doesn’t know where the station is. Roddy offers to drive her, but there is confusion about the route, and they don’t find her.
Pamela in the meantime has forgotten the name of Alison’s hotel. She is picked up by the taxi service, Dugald McDougal, a young man running the taxi to save money for medical school, and Pamela being flighty, they spend the night smooching. In the meantime, Roddy and Alison give up driving around trying to find Pamela and go to Edinburgh for dinner, getting stranded overnight in the mist.
When Alison gets back to Glenlochart, Neil shows he is angry, which she reads as disdain, as everyone else assumes the worst. Soon, Lady Caroline arrives, having been kicked out of her friend’s house for flirting with her husband, and the situation gets even more awkward.
Alison’s relatives are so awful, it’s funny, and the novel spends a lot more time on all the complications than the romantic angle. But Alison is an interesting heroine, and this is a fun book to read. I was just a bit shocked at how blithely Pamela travels all over the place after having been told to quarantine.
