Some of Scotland's top authors will be unveiling their latest literary offerings in 2014.

To ensure you don't miss anything, here are some of the books that will be released this year.

We've also put together a list of some of the year's best television, music, film and theatre highlights. To see these click on the links below.

Alexander McCall Smith

The author, who created the hugely popular No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, along with many other titles, will be bringing out two new works in 2014. The first is part of a collaborative effort to re-imagine Jane Austen's' work in the 21st Century, called the Austen Project. Smith will take on Emma, the stubborn but well-meaning matchmaker. The work will be published in autumn, 2014. (HarperCollins). At the end of 2013, McCall Smith will also release the novel 'The Forever Girl', where we follow Clover from her childhood to adulthood and her struggles with unrequited love. This will be published by Polygon.

Quintin Jardine

The Scottish crime writer, famed for his bestselling series of detective novels featuring Bob Skinner, Oz Blackstone and Primavera Blackstone, has written a new addition to his Bob Skinner novels. 'Hour of Darkness' begins with the body of a murdered woman being washed up near the mouth of the river forth, and the mystery leads to Skinner questioning everything he knows. The book is due to be published on May the 8th by Headline.

Broadcast: The new series starts in April 2013

Val McDermid

In another addition to the Austen Project, Scottish crime writer McDermid, most famous for novel series featuring Dr. Tony Hill, will be reworking Austen's classic Northanger Abbey, and will be bringing a touch of her mastery of suspense to the story of a young girl obsessed with gothic novels.  The novel is due to be published in March 2014, by HarperCollins.

 

Stuart MacBride

After enjoying the success of three consecutive number one bestsellers, crime writer MacBride has written a new crime thriller called 'A Song for the Dying', which features the hunt for 'The Inside Man', a serial killer who kills women and stitches plastic dolls underneath their skin. The novel is due to be published on January the 16th by HarperCollins.

 

Charles Cumming

The bestselling Scottish author of a Spy by Nature, The Hidden Man and The Spanish Game, award winning Cumming will release his seventh spy fiction novel, 'A Colder War', in April this year. The novel will see the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service investigate a mysterious plane crash that killed MI6's head of station. The novel will be published on the 24th of April by HarperCollins.

 

Allan Burnett

Historian and critically acclaimed children's author Burnett will release a collection of true life tales from the battlefields of World War One. 'Scottish Tales of Adventure: World War One' is based on interviews and offers a personal and unconventional insight into warfare. The compilation is due to be published on the 6th of March by Birlinn Ltd.

 

Gillian Galbraith

Famed for her crime novels starring detective sergeant Alice Ross, Gailbraith's newest work instead introduces Father Vincent Ross, an accidental detective whose life is thrown into turmoil after a murder in the house of a Roman Catholic bishop. The book is due to be published by Birlinn Ltd on the 3rd of April 2014.

 

 

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