The Last Leave

Michael Weir has returned from 1916 carrying the unbearable knowledge that, although he saved lives, he has changed the past in ways he never intended. Unable to accept the altered world around him, he searches for a way to return, determined to undo the damage his actions have caused. But the storm that carried him into the past has long since passed.

Back in Scotland, lacking direction and purpose, Michael is introduced to David Crichton, a man whose life should have ended in the Great War. Instead, because of Michael’s actions, he survived. David asks him to travel to Belgium on his behalf, to honour a fallen comrade whose name is carved into the Memorial Wall at Tyne Cot Cemetery.

And when Michael touches that name, the pathway to the past opens up once more.

Thrown back into the mud and terror of the Western Front in 1917, Michael finds himself living the remnants of another soldier’s life, carrying memories that are not his own and facing horrors he thought he had escaped. As he searches for the reason he has been sent back again, he discovers that fate is not finished with him – or with the young man whose life he now inhabits.

The Last Leave continues the Broken Lines series with a powerful examination of the human cost of war. Set against the backdrop of Passchendaele and the Scottish home front, it explores the frailty of individuals, the randomness of fate, the harsh realities of military bureaucracy, and the profound consequences that ripple through generations long after the guns fall silent.

The Last Leave is currently under development, with an anticipated publication date of August 2027.