'...a competently crafted novel in which both past and present are inextricably woven.' - West Highland Free Press
A young Canadian girl returns to the Hebridean island from which her ancestors were forced to emigrate and suddenly finds herself swept into the past of those very ancestors. She re-lives the harsh realities of nineteenth-century Uist life and the merciless evictions from the township in 1851 - the black houses are burned over the heads of the people and they must carry her dying mother and their few possessions to shelter in a cave above the ruins. So real is the past that her very identity is threatened. Is she the Gaelic speaking Catriona who embarked so reluctantly on the emigrant ship or is she the research student Kat MacDonald recovering from a broken love affair? Where does her destiny lie?
Richenda Francis, writer and novelist, has a home in South Uist. In this story she lovingly recreates the Uists of the past with carefully researched historical detail and tells the story of the crofters and their brutal eviction in unsentimental authenticity.
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