Coincidentally, I had just finished reading the advance copy of Pete Irvine’s latest book when he called to arrange an interview.
His first foray into fiction is officially published by Luath Press on 30 September 2026 and is available in good bookshops everywhere.
Pete has a writing background however, having compiled Scotland the Best “for a very long time”. But this is a different animal as it is a fictional account of an adman who becomes involved in the music industry, his journey, both personal and professional.
Pete said that in 1988 he took a break to Raasay, and sitting overlooking the Sound he came to a decision about writing a book.. He said: “I just thought I would start it now.”
The book jets from Raasay to London, to Ibiza where Pete lived for a while, and Glasgow where he was involved with the Glasgow City of Culture which features prominently in the book at the very end of the story.
We sat outside his home in the autumn sunshine and had a chat about how the novel evolved. You can listen below:
Pete explained: “I have been writing, compiling, and writing, and updating my book Scotland the Best for a very long time. It’s on its 14th edition. There are two other books that go with it: photographic books with great pictures, especially my book The Scotland the Best: the Islands, with top photographers.
“It’s curated, and I get to write about Gigha or Skye or you know, there’s like eight pages on Skye with beautiful, beautiful photographs. So and there’s writing in those – those are great books I think. But this is most definitely my first book of fiction. I think it’s called one’s debut novel.”
He explained that it was “a very unconventional process, as regards writing a book, first book or otherwise, because I started Regular Music, the company, and we did all those concerts and festivals for years and years and years, and then in 1990 started doing events, creative events or created events to do with specific locations or reasons or whatever.
“So not just concerts that you know record companies provide the records and then the artists come and they need to promote it and all that. I sort of got tired of doing that, and so in 1990 we did the opening and closing of Glasgow 1990 European City of Culture, which was a very, very big deal at the time.
“Glasgow was the dead right place to do it. They managed to raise a lot lot of money, and we did the opening event, closing event, Frank Sinatra, Ibrox, and the big day in in in the middle, and the big day was fantastic. We closed off the city.
“We had lots of different stages, so that was the first, you know, big event that that we did, and and so I decided I’m going to have a new company, and it’s called Unique Events, and it’s it’s each event is unique in itself. That’s why it’s called that.
“It is the best fireworks in Britain. I always say because they only last for four minutes, whereas the London ones go on and on and on.. And we spend all our money in that one hit. But Hogmanay was never, anyways, just the day itself, because we brought street theatre from all over the Europe. We were the best in Britain at staging street theatre.”
The book was a long time in production. Pete said: “This particular book that we’re holding in our hand now it took almost five years, on and off five years, but it had a much earlier beginning than that.
“Well, actually no. I started it in ’88, and without backtracking on it too much, I needed a break and all that, so I went. I drove my car to the island of Raasay off Skye, an island I’d been before. It’s very beautiful. It’s very below the radar, really.
“It’s not a big tourist kind of thing. And in the middle is a very enigmatic, very landmark mountain. Not mountain – hill. It’s a hill, but it’s really quite special.
“So, I went there and I spent some days in the big house there, which is Raasay House, which some people had just taken over and were going to turn it into an activity centre, which is what they have done now for many years, decades, and it’s fantastic now.
“Raasay is just a really encompassable island. You can really get to know it quickly, and it’s pretty much unspoiled compared to just most of those western isles. I would say. So anyway, having gone up there, and sat on a bench and looked over the sound of Raasay to Skye one afternoon, I just thought maybe I could write a book, and I’d been thinking about it a bit on the drive and before that even, but I decided.
“I didn’t know where it was going to go. I just thought it’s going to start where I am – here and now. I just got here. I’m just going to start it now. You know, the character, his name is Thom, as you said. He gets there. He wants to get out of London. He’s in the advertising biz. In fact, more than that, he’s with a company which is more or less Saatchi and Saatchi, and he, you know, is disillusioned with it all, and he wanted to escape, and he had split up with his girlfriend.
“So he gets to Raasay too, just before me, and so he decided that he liked it there, and and he met people, and that became my story. And it just it just unrolled from there.
“The book is split into three sections: the island, the mainland, and the island. And so the island is the first, and it’s quite a slow start because things are slow in Raasay and it was set there. It was set there because that’s where I got to one day.”
