A Bound Heart

Lark MacDougall is in charge of the bees and the medicinal garden at Kerrera Castle, in the remote western isles of Scotland. Young, pretty, and poor, she captures the attention of smuggler Captain Rory MacPherson, but her heart still longs for Magnus MacLeish, her childhood companion who is now laird of the manor. Lark's simple life is turned upside down, however, when a noblewoman takes one of her herbal concoctions with disastrous consequences. Exiled to the Virginia colonies, Lark must find an inner strength to survive both the voyage and her indenture. First focused solely on survival, she soon tries to recover hope and possibly love. With an eye for both the sweeping march of time and mundane historical details, Frantz (the Lacemaker; A Moonbow Night) pulls readers into a mid-18th-century adventure spanning continents. Each character, no matter how minor, is nuanced and believable.