This spellbinding historical saga follows a passionate woman from the windswept Scottish isle of St. Kilda to Victorian London, then to a tropical island off the coast of Florida during the Civil War. In Abigail McQueen, Karen Harper has created a remarkable heroine who dares to defy oppressive convention.

Raised in St. Kilda, where both the social order and relationships are dominated by men, Abigail is both envied and scorned for her independent ways. But nothing stops her from defying the island's primitive mores, which keep children uneducated and call for birthing methods that result in four out of five island newborns dying of a mysterious illness. When the sea claims her young husband and her own baby dies of this undiagnosed disease, the shattered Abigail begins her relentless search for a cure - a quest that will haunt her for years.

Shunned by the narrow-minded islanders who already deplore her radical ideas, Abigail is regarded as more scandalous than ever when she falls in love with "outsider" Morgan West, a romantic and adventurous American sea captain. But instead of following her heart when the American Civil War calls Morgan back to his native land, the dogged Abigail leaves for London to pursue her medical research. It is an agonizing yet fateful decision-and the start ot a journey that will lead her to a tropical paradise off Florida. There, even with war raging all around her, Abigail clings to her unshakable ideals and dreams, fighting intolerance while openly embracing forbidden desires with abandon and ecstasy.

Afire with the spirit and courage of an extraordinary heroine, this lushly written romantic saga brims with passion, tragedy, and authentic history, giving testimony to Karen Harper's gift of mesmerizing fiction.

We have chosen the following excerpt to give you a feel for the horror of the problem the women of St. Kilda faced.

"Abigail!" Douglas's distant voice jolted her that day near noon where she stood wearily stirring her dye pot. "Here!" she called and dropped the stick in her haste to get outside. He was nearly running toward the cottage, but when she came out, he motioned for her and started away again.

She hurried after him. "What's amiss? Why are you back already? Nobody went over the rocks?" she asked, referring to the fact that several fowlers died that way every year. Strange, she had never worried about that for her Douglas, but trusted his skills.

"Not that. Andrew Nichol brought word out to the cliffs that Mother sent for me. Have ye not seen Margaret and the bairn today?"

"She told me the lass was sleeping again. It-it canna be!" she cried and tore after Douglas toward the Gillieses' cottage. Had the worst happened? She could not believe it. Her heart thudded in her throat for more than just Margaret's plight. Douglas's mother had sent for him clear up on the cliffs when she had yet to call for her new daughter-in-law in the next cottage! She had still chosen to shut Abigail out from Margaret and her new family in this time when they must all help each other.

"But Douglas, the bairn should be through the wait," she insisted. "Even this morning, Margaret said things were fine, and Neil has been saying the same, so-"

"Neil came back with me," Douglas told her. "He says Margaret's been keeping him away too. He's been gone each day, and she walks the bairn all night while the wee mite whimpers."

Abigail felt as if the ground had dropped from under her. But Mairi had seen the child recently; she had said so. Now which day was that? Abigail had been so busy, so tired, and Margaret had been so protective-that was to be expected, wasn't it? Abigail had been so sure everything was all right! But the scene that greeted them inside the Gillieses' cottage when Hamish opened the door - oh, dear God, Hamish had been sent for too! -terrified her.

Neil and Mairi stood beseeching Margaret to let them look at the child, but she stood, backed into a corner, facing them down. "No, she's fine, just fussy!" she told them, cradling the blanket wrapped bairn close to her breasts. "And I dinna want the kneewoman here! Yer all fretting for naught! Mrs. MacCrimmon said she is a sturdy child. Didna she say so, Abigail!"

Abigail walked to stand between Neil and Mairi, her hands held out to her friend. Margaret's eyes were wild; her skin stark white. She looked like a cornered fulmar facing down a cluster of bonxies to save her chick. How had she not seen this coming? Abigail scolded herself. Why had she not left her tasks to stay with her friend and sister longer than the birthing night!

"Margaret, no one means to take the bairn from you," Abigail said. Her voice shook, but her tone was soothing. "We just want to see her-"

The door slammed open. Abigail spun to see Hamish grab for it as Isobel MacCrimmon strode in. "Isobel," Mairi said, her voice choked with sobs, "the bairn-the signs."

"No, she is fine!" Margaret screamed. "Ye said she was fine, Mrs. MacCrimmon!" But in the presence of the knee-woman, Margaret edged along the wall and sank upon the bed as if doomed. She bent over the child cradled in the valley of her thighs; her long; lank hair hung down nearly to her ankles like a curtain to hide the bairn. Isobel raised her to a sitting position and bent over to unwrap the child. Abigail gasped at the difference in the appearance of the wee lass: the bluish body seemed already stiff, with almost knotted limbs which quaked.

"The bairn has not been suckling for a day or two," Isobel pronounced. The cottage was silent but for Margaret's racking sobs. Neil went to bend over her; gripping her shoulders; Douglas put his arm around Abigail. "Aye, the wee jaws are locked," Isobel went on, her deep voice like the drone of a bagpipe. "Has she had the fits? Well, has she, lass, and ye been hiding it and not believing it yerseif?" she demanded of Margaret. When Margaret did not answer, Isobel said to Mairi, "Aye, that's the way of it, for I have seen it in six of my eight bairns beside many others. A new mother has the worse time with it.,'

"I had the worse time with it all three times," Mairi said, and, slump-shouldered, shuffled over to sit on the bed beside her daughter. Standing across the room as if to guard the door, Hamish hung his head and sniffed hard once, twice. Douglas snatched his cap off his head. Abigail walked past the knee-woman to sit on Margaret's other side, so those women closest to her could watch and wait and mourn together.

"I canna - canna lose her;" Margaret choked out, seizing both her mother's and Abigail's wrists in a wrenching grip. Then, with her own tears, Margaret Adair Gillies baptized her child, for it was the only christening the bairn would ever have.

Scottish Radiance is an Associate of Amazon.com Books and you can order this book from them by going to Wings of Morning.