Across the Bay

Across the Bay is set in the mid-eighteenth century immediately after the Battle of Culloden Moor. Its main characters live on farms surrounding a bay. The most powerful family, the Ramsays, is from Protestant landed gentry and is divided over class and religion. Jack, their eldest son, returns home after a year in Europe to find his mother opposed to his decision to marry Rachel, their lowly but beautiful and talented ward. His mother is an iron-willed aristocrat opposed to a marriage that would lower their status in society. Worse still, their Catholic cousin claims their vast estates, which belonged to his side of the family before the rebellion. After Jack’s homecoming their lives become more complicated. Rachel’s brother is enraged when she becomes pregnant by Jack and is likely to be abandoned. The Lowland clearances have started and an evicted farmer is bent on revenge for the loss of his livelihood. Then another farmer finds his wife with the family’s youngest son. One way or the other, the most powerful family around the bay is heading for trouble.