In the spring the Frasers return home to Fraser’s Ridge, accompanied by Ian and Rachel, by Jamie’s sister Jenny, by their new charge Fanny and by Fergus‘ oldest son Germain. Jamie takes responsibility for the settlement again, and they start building a new house.
On a trip to Beardsley’s Trading Post Claire meets one of the men who abducted and raped her years ago.
Ian and Rachel have a healthy baby son.
Shortly afterwards, Claire and Jamie see a dark-haired man and a red-haired woman with two children coming up the mountain
…
It’s Roger and Brianna with their children. Searching for Jemmy and fleeing from a gang of criminals, they have travelled from the future to the past, first ending up in the wrong time and finally finding their way to Fraser’s Ridge.
The members of the big family have a lot to tell to each other, but they also have to finish building the house and to construct a new Meeting House. As it turns out, it’s not only Roger who will hold Sunday Services there as a Presbyterian minister. Captain Cunningham, a new settler on Fraser’s Ridge, has ambitions to be a Protestant lay preacher. And Ian’s wife Rachel issues an open invitation to her Quaker meetings.
John Quincy Myers, mountain man and old acquaintance, comes visiting and brings a wild bee hive as a present for Claire. And one night an injured dog comes to Fraser’s Ridge and joins the family. Jamie seems to know Bluebell, as they name her. When Claire asks him suspiciously how, he replies: „I left her howling on her master’s grave.“ Jamie has found Claire’s rapist.
William is looking for his cousin Benjamin, who has disappeared in a very questionable manner. On his way he doesn’t only get involved in new espionage affairs but also finds a new relative. But the discovery is accompanied by more inner turmoil: Can John Cinammon really be his half-brother? In order to find the answer to his questions, he takes the young half-native along to Savannah and to Lord John.
Jamie’s big family has hardly been united on Fraser’s Ridge when fate forces them to swarm out again. Young Ian learns of a massacre in the North that might have affected his first wife, Emily. In order to find out what happened to her, he takes Rachel, his infant son and his mother Jenny on a journey to the Mohawk. Lord John, who is worried about William and hopes that seeing Brianna again might help his stepson, invites Brianna and her family to Savannah. He organizes a well-paid commission for her, to paint the portrait of a wealthy merchant’s wife. The MacKenzies reach Savannah by the end of September.
On October 9, Roger is inadvertently involved in a military confrontation outside Savannah. In this battle Polish general Casimir Pulaski, one of the more fascinating figures of American military history, gets fatally injured. His men ask Brianna to paint a portrait of their beloved dead leader.
William finds Ben and has to realized that his cousin faked his own death in order to disappear … and turn his coat.
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood