Unexpected love, unlooked for adventure, and one woman's quest to be free.The Western Coast of Scotia, 1135Young widow Ailsa runs Caerwyn, her family's estate, and dreams of leaving her past and her duties behind for just one summer, voyaging to the far ports of Ireland with her cousin Dugald. But Dugald claims the times are too dangerous and leaves her behind. When a message arrives from the new Scots king, announcing that she and her estate have been granted to an English knight, alone and frightened, a furious Ailsa vows she will regain her lands. Ailsa's struggle to avoid a forced marriage and keep her home leads to a challenging journey to the king's castle at Carlisle and a new understanding of the turmoil and changes coming to the Western Coast and Isles. For the new king of Scotia favors English and Norman customs, and the old Gaelic laws, like the right of a woman to inherit or freely choose who she will marry, are falling away. In the endless delays at court Ailsa learns much about the frightening realities of power and the turmoil of clashing cultures coming. She meets the elegant and insistent Hugh, friendly Effie, fellow widow Alice, and overpowering Beatrice. And she encounters the landless knight Robert, who surprises her at each turn. When the female storyteller Eachna comes to Carlisle, Ailsa finds a new passion and new daring. She learns about the courage that creativity demands and the complexity of the freedom she craves. Powerful and unscrupulous men need her and her estate; can Ailsa escape their grasp? Can she imagine a future that will save Caerwyn's people and invent a way to live truly free?
