Skye Sisters Trilogy Update by Sue Moorcroft

 It’s been a pleasure to contribute to Romancing the Genres over the last decade. My first post was written in June 2015 and was about the English-language market versus translations.

That was around the time I signed for Avon HarperCollins, dreaming of them taking me to Kindle UK #1 and making me a bestseller … which is exactly what they did. I’m just moving on again to Renegade Hachette (which you can read about here, if you’d like to) but my last book for Avon comes out on June 5^th 2025, so I thought I’d tell you about it.

Over the Sea to Skye is the third book of the Skye Sisters trilogy. I don’t know if you’ve been to the Isle of Skye, but it’s a gorgeous, largely unspoilt island off the west coast of Scotland. There are no high-rises or motorways and the scenery’s glorious. Skye’s part of the Hebrides, so other islands lie all around it like giant pebbles. I really recommend a visit.

The trilogy concerns three sisters, and although they all appear in each book, each has her own novel in which to tell her story. The sisters were adopted by musicians Maxie and Vince Wynter and grew up with an abundance of love. Of course, every adoptee has a birth story, so as well as all the usual conflicts, and finding love, each sister discovers how she came to live with Maxie and Vince in Suffolk, England. Sadly, Maxie and Vince died without sharing what they knew.

Each sister has a long name. Altheadora (or Althéa-Dora, depending which part of her story in Under a Summer Skye you’re reading) is Thea; Esmerelda (A Skye Full of Stars) is Ezz or Ezzie; but Valentina is always Valentina. Thea and Ezz took jobs together on the beautiful Isle of Skye after something bad happened to them in Suffolk. Now they work for the wealthy Larsson family at a restored grand house called Rothach Hall. Valentina also moved from England to Scotland but always on the mainland: first Edinburgh and then Inverness. She does buy a tiny summer cottage in Rothach village though. It’s a real fixer-upper and she pays a local builder to renovate.

At the beginning of Over the Sea to Skye, Valentina’s life has completely changed as she’s left her job as a corporate lawyer, and her husband has left her. She and her seven-year-old son Barnaby are on a tiny train between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh (where the Skye Bridge begins) when two American men jump on board at the last moment. They’re Xander Courage and his seventeen-year-old nephew MacDonald, and Xander’s just had his wallet snatched, which has made him stormy. He's usually a sweet guy, though rumpled, and Valentina’s shocked to find herself attracted to him. He’s travelling to Skye because his grandparents were born there, and MacDonald’s along for the ride, having got into a little trouble back in Pittsburgh.

Despite a ten-year age gap, Barnaby and MacDonald bond over computer games and both being away from home and their usual friends. To be honest, their companionship took me by surprise, the way it wove itself through the story. It’s sweet. And it helped me get Valentina and Xander on the same page.

Both Valentina and Xander are at crossroads, both on the cusp of new jobs, both out of relationships and spending the summer on Skye. His life’s in the US and hers in the UK, but why not a summer romance …? But life’s never that simple, especially not Valentina’s. Her ex-husband comes back into her life in an entirely unexpected way, impacting terribly on Barnaby, and then she begins to receive messages from a DNA-testing website. Xander’s always there when she needs him … until his life in the US calls him back. And it’s a call he can’t ignore.

 I’m honoured to be one of the guests asked back to write a final post for Romancing the Genres. It’s a wonderful site full of fascinating posts. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to talk about my latest book.

 

Sue Moorcroft is a Sunday Times bestselling author. Her novels have been #1 on Kindle UK and Top 100 on Kindle US, Canada, Germany and Italy. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Novel of the Year, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award, two HOLT Medallions from the Romance Writers of Virginia and the Katie Fforde Bursary. She’s the president of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

 Her novels, short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.

 Over the Sea to Skye, published 5 June 2025

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