Sounds of violence, flames leaping to the sky, thick acrid smoke rising like a pall Little Fiona Jamieson realises the dreaded Clearances have come to Glenbruach, witnesses her mother's murder, small brothers thrown into a cart. Other crofts torched, those who resist, savagely beaten, brutalised. She falls under a horses hooves - amnesia. Taken to the Factor's house, word is received her soldier father has died in battle. Percy Twaith, wealthy sheep farmer and mill owner notices Fiona, whilst making a deal with Glenbruach's Laird, who is forcibly clearing hundreds of poor, loyal tenants from the glen. Twaith's wife is childless. He illegally adopts Fiona and brings her to his opulent Northumberland home. Twelve year later, Fiona recovers her memory, turns her back on a favoured position in English society to return to her highland glen in determined effort to bring back some of its people, in a touching story of a woman's fierce determination, courage and endurance, as she seeks to scatter the cinders of time.