An intricate picture of a family in the heyday of the British Empire, an epic story spanning almost a hundred years and stretching from Edinburgh to the Crimea, from an expanding America to the India of the Raj.

'An ancient brooding castle... a dispossessed child... a lifelong passion for one errant man... wars, crises and feuds... ' WASHINGTON POST.

Reay Tannahill's great bestseller is the story of an extraordinary woman's determination to win back her birthright – the remote and beautiful West Highland castle of Kinveil – sold by her father to a Glasgow merchant when she was seven years old. It is also the intricate picture of a family in the heyday of the British Empire, an epic story spanning almost a hundred years and stretching from Edinburgh to the Crimea, from an expanding America to the India of the Raj.

"This novel most closely emulates... WAR AND PEACE... The heart beats faster as each page turns." - Toronto Globe

"An absorbing saga spanning a century of love affairs, hatreds and highpoints of Victorian history" - Daily Express

"A fine storyteller with... an appreciation of the Highlands that is downright poetic'." - Washington Post