This story is about two characters living about three hundred years apart. They try to survive in a world that presents them with challenges. There are several factors that connect them. Both have family issues and both hold on to a basic sense of decency about human values. And both have memories in common - the joy of playing on the beach at Rosehearty as children. Sadie, a young widow from Glasgow, seeks a chance to leave an unhappy past with self-destruction, violence and drug addiction behind her. She sets up a "B and B" business in Rosehearty, a village on the Moray Firth in Scotland. Her hope of a new beginning in a place she remembers from childhood holidays is only fulfilled during the tourist season, when she is kept busy. She is afraid of the long winter nights coming soon, when she will have time on her hands to brood. Her life takes an unexpected turn when the last guest of the season appears - and disappears. Interwoven with Sadie's story is the fate of a true historical figure: Alexander Forbes, the last lord of Pitsligo, one of the leading Jacobites fighting to restore the rightful king of Scotland to the throne. After the crushing of the "Forty-Five" rebellion and the sacking of his castle by government troops, he is on the run for the last years of his life, hiding in his tenants' houses or in the rocks near Rosehearty. This magical place is over westwards, known to the locals as "ower wastert".