regshoe

Yes, I enjoyed the contrast for David, having grown up taking Whiggism for granted (he'd have been what, eleven, when the Rising actually happened? I wonder what his memories of it are like) and then meeting Alan and travelling in the Highlands and upending some of his expectations. And it certainly is good fun :D

he probably did it to remind the reader that this is alternate history

Huh—that seems a strange choice. Yeah, with historical Alan as a main character I think this definitely counts as RPF. I wonder what he and EPS would have made of each other's historical RPF Jacobite fanfic.

Oh, I love Alan and his over-dramatics :D (I wonder how much of that was historical vs Stevenson's invention?). And you're totally right about all those extra and emotional moments—very good stuff.

A trial and some more drama do sound good. I appreciated this one's lack of canon romance, but never mind, and I'm glad the ending is satisfying. And thanks for the rec of New Arabian Nights, that sounds good too.

(Oh, the mention of Fanny made me remember something else—she wrote a preface to Kidnapped, in which she explains that she supplied the receipt for 'Lily of the Valley Water' which appears in the first chapter, and the way it was described there made me think it was going to turn out to be pivotal later on in the plot—but, like the importance of 1751, it never turns up again! Does it appear in the sequel?).