The Jewel is set largely during the dramatic years of Jean Armour and Robert Burns's courtship in Mauchline, their married life at Ellisland and in Dumfries, and Robert s early death, all against a background simmering with political intrigue and turmoil. Jean, a beautiful young woman with the voice of a nightingale, has been inexplicably neglected by biographers and historians. At first, her stonemason father tried to protect the young Jean from the advances of the mercurial ploughman-poet, whose roving eye and even delusions of grandeur were notorious. Nevertheless, she fell for him...

The island of Gigha is a small gem, the most southerly of the true Hebridean islands, lying just off Tayinloan on Scotland s Kintyre peninsula. Gigha s good harbours, fertile land, mild climate and strategically useful position have given it a fascinating history. Catherine Czerkawska relates the sometimes turbulent story of the people of Gigha, from the settlers of prehistoric times, through successive incomers including the Celts, the Vikings, and the McNeill lords of this island."