# This Door of the Seas

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- Book: [This Door of the Seas](https://www.bookquiver.com/jo-sharp/this-door-of-the-seas) ([This Door of the Seas.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/jo-sharp/this-door-of-the-seas.md))
- Authors: [Jo Sharp](https://www.bookquiver.com/jo-sharp), [Val McDermid](https://www.bookquiver.com/val-mcdermid)
- Publisher: Birlinn
- ISBN: 978-18-4697-746-6
- Pages: 160
- Published: 2026-08-06
- Language: en_US
- Binding: Hardcover

## Description

The Darien Venture was the singular event at the end of the seventeenth century that fundamentally altered Scotland’s future. 'A powerfully clear account . . . Highly recommended for anyone interested in the colonial history of Scotland' – Paterson Joseph, actor and author of the award-winning The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius SanchoIt took place on the other side of the world, amid the jungle-coastline at the junction between the continents of North and South America. And most of us know next to nothing about it. Now it’s time to remedy that. Award-winning novelist Val McDermid and Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp unite in this revelatory novella to trace the story of Scotland’s only trading colony, which turned from a dream of prosperity to a nightmare that bankrupted an already impoverished nation and propelled it towards political union with England. Written as a series of letters home from expedition scientist Dr James Wallace to his wife Eliza and Sir Robert Sibbald, the first Geographer Royal, this epistolary tale offers a devastating account of the forces that doomed the endeavour and completely changed the history of the British Isles in the process.