The year is 1945 and Claire Beauchamp Randall, a former British combat
nurse, is on holiday in Scotland with her husband, looking forward to
becoming reacquainted after the war's long separation. Like most
practical women, Claire hardly expects her curiosity to get the better
of her. But an ancient stone circle near her lodgings holds an eerie
fascination, and when she innocently touches one of the giant boulders,
she's hurtled backward in time more than two hundred years, to 1743.
Alone
where no lady should be alone, and far from the familiar comforts of
her other life, Claire's usual resourcefulness is tested to the limit.
The merciless garrison captain so feared by others bears an uncanny
resemblance to the husband she has just left behind. Her own odd
circumstances expose her to accusations of witchcraft. And the strands
of a political intrigue she doesn't understand threaten to ensnare her
at every turn.
But of all the perils her new life holds, none is
more disquieting than her growing feelings for James Fraser, the
gallant young Scot she is forced to marry for her own protection. Sworn
by his wedding vows to keep her from harm, Jamie's passion for Claire
goes beyond duty. As she struggles with the memories of another
lifetime, she is forced to make an agonizing and fateful choice, and
learns ultimately that a man's instinct to protect the woman he loves
is as old as time.
