These 3 novels span a period of just over one year: from June, 1772 to August 1773. In that short time, two men meet in a travelers' stop in Scotland and end up as trainer and student (Unkilted) before crossing the ocean together as sailors (Unbroken) and then hitting the road on horseback to discover America's wild blue-ridged mountains (Frontier Highlanders).

At first their relationship is oil poured on water. Gregory MacGregor, who goes by the name Grier Black when the novel begins, is a Highland clansman and outlaw hiding from his tragic past. He distrusts strangers, but he hates Campbells and British "Sassenachs" even more. David Campbell (David Adamson), the son of a Philadelphia Quaker printer who's been kidnapped by unscrupulous men, is a naive young man whom Grier dismisses as a weak bairn. Only when he begins to train David does he discover the hidden steel in the lad's character...and under his trousers...and then, unfortunately, his detestable last name.

Each novel runs together like the Shee Waters, the burn where their romance begins, to form a whole. In Unkilted, Grier learns how to love. But his own melancholy nature gets in the way of happiness as he and David part in anguished misunderstanding. The central novel Unbroken recounts the sea adventures of these two would-be lovers—plus the harrowing story of Grier's Uncle Iain and his own lost love. The final novel Frontier Highlanders is about discovery—of a frontier father, a rough and wild territory, people whose skin is not white, and their own honest needs.