Elinor Lyon

[7] Lyon began The House in Hiding, for example, after reading Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, because she disliked the characters in it (they were too good at everything).

The change was pinpointed in an obituary by Julia Eccleshare: "Lyon's adventures, with their strong girls and sensitive boys and shared leadership between the sexes, were firmly within the Arthur Ransome tradition, yet felt more modern, more thoughtful about how children's behaviour is affected by what they experience, especially the way they are treated by adults.

"[1] The main characters, Ian and Sovra (pronounced with a long "o",[9] from sóbhrach, meaning "primrose" in Gaelic), are the son and daughter of a local doctor.

From a 24 June 2005 letter from Elinor Lyon:I used the area round Arisaig and Mallaig for my Ian and Sovra books, though I altered quite a lot of things.Kinlochmore = Fort WilliamLoch Fionn = [[ Sound of Arisaig|Loch Nan Uamh]]Kilcorrie and Melvick = a mixture of Arisaig and Mallaig.Fionnard = Ardnish where there is a deserted village, but not in the right place.The railway and the viaduct are real, but Loch-head, Kindrachill and Camas Ban are all imaginary, and I've taken liberties with the landscape – mountains, white sand mountain roads etc.

As with the bossy town girl Ann in the first two books, Cathie is at once a focus and a foil for the doings of the bold and humane Ian and Sovra.

5 in the series,[10] she becomes the central character, ably supported by Ian and Sovra, but deeply uncertain of herself as a fostered child, despite clear ideas of what and where she wants to be.

[11] Determination to show that girls can be as resourceful and adventurous as boys pervades Lyon's books, not excluding the first, Hilary's Island (1948).

He stated in a dust-jacket endorsement of Wishing Water Gate that "a deal of close thinking must have gone into its bright-vivid and complex plot and its lively English; I enjoyed every page.

As one later scholar remarked, "Elinor Lyon, whose series of novels about Ian and Sovra – set in the Scottish Highlands – have something of the character of William Mayne's early fiction, is not mentioned in any of the standard works.

Lyon ceased to write in 1975, but reprints of several titles appeared in the 1980s, and four were reissued from 2006 onwards by an Edinburgh publisher, Fidra Books.