When thirty-something divorcee Alys returns to the beautiful Hebridean island of Garve after 25 years she is enchanted by the ancient embroidered cabinet on display in her hotel. Alys finds herself falling in love with local creel fisherman Donal, her childhood playmate. Interwoven with this contemporary love story is the darker tale of Henrietta Dalrymple, a widow at nineteen, kidnapped by the fearsome Manus McNeill, torn from her baby son, and held on Garve against her will. With 300 years separating them, the two women are connected physically by the curiosity cabinet, emotionally by the tug of motherhood and spiritually by the island itself.