Paisley, Scotland 1775
In the midst of a street brawl, Margaret Knox first encounters Islay McInnes, a Highland girl struggling to support herself and her two cousins in the Paisley slums.

Their two lives are polar opposites. Islay, at sixteen, spins yarn to make ends meet whilst Margaret, wife to a surgeon and teacher at the pauper school, pursues charitable endeavours to ease the plight of those less fortunate.

With the slums rife with illness and as the pox begins to spread Margaret seeing it as her Christian duty to help, persuades her friend Jamie Todd to allow Islay and her cousins to live above his weaving shop.

Meanwhile Islay is torn when she receives a marriage proposal that would mean moving away from all she knows and cares for, especially Margaret. But when she falls for a man who doesn’t seem to care for her at all, the consequences are disastrous.

Can Islay stay in the new home she has grown to love and can Margaret hold together a family beset by conflict and illness?

Will their friendship help them navigate difficult times?

Previously published in paperback as A Matter of Mischief

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