The first of the English family was Adam - born to a red-haired witch and one of Cromwell's conquering soldiers. The soldier vanished, and the witch was burned, but her last prophecy was that her bloodline would survive...

And as the years unfolded, changing Dundee from superstitious village to a town of thriving jute mills, the generations of red-haired sons and daughters rose from obscurity to notoriety. All of them were talented, gifted, ambitious - and in all of them ran the blood of Elspet, the witch.