In a Scotland wracked by the last throes of the Jacobite rebellion, a tragic tale of ambition, politics, betrayals and love unfolds. Book one of two. Scotland, 1743. In Blackwater Castle, in the Highlands, the Duke of Plaxton is looking for a new portrait painter. A member of Clan Grant, supporters of the Act of Union with England, the duke has a son, William, whose heart leans towards the Jacobite cause, and a daughter, Amelia, betrothed to an English lord she has never met. It’s there, in this crucible of rebellion and ambitions, that arrives Joseph Callander, local boy back from years spent in Italy, and talented painter …

In a Scotland wracked by the last throes of the Jacobite rebellion, a tragic tale of ambition, politics, betrayals and love unfolds. Book two of two. Joseph is in hiding and believed dead. Wrongly accused of seducing Amelia Menmuir, gravely injured by her brother William, he now rests and prepares his revenge. Against Peter, his apprentice, who altered his drawings to frame him, and against William, whom he thinks orchestrated it all. Meanwhile, however, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stuart heir, is about to return to Scotland, and the country will soon be engulfed in a bloody rebellion that will end in Culloden …