Blood on the Thistle is the examination of the life and times of a remarkable Scottish family, the Cranstons of Haddington, East Lothian. It focuses on a period from about 1880, when the young, hard-working parents, Alec and Lizzy Cranston, arrived in Haddington, through to 1920, when the family they had produced had been torn apart by the effects of the Great War and broke up as its surviving members pursued seperate lives around the globe. Out of seven sons who served in the First World War, four died and two more were horrifically wounded; only one, the youngest, returned home physically unscathed.

This book explores the effects of this extreme sacrifice on the sons themselves as well as the loved ones they left behind, especially their mother Lizzie, who mourned them for the rest of her days.