From the canon

The Stone Before the Ash

A medieval MacKail exile crosses the western sea, carrying the oath and claim that will root his family in Glen Torridon.

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Book summary

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1265–1340, 1675

In 1675, George MacKail takes young Torin and Malcolm to Calum’s Stone and tells them how their family began.

Generations earlier, Cathal mac Cathail breaks with his kin to protect Mairead nic Ruairidh, whose fragile claim lies in Glen Torridon. Fleeing by sea, they build the first MacKail croft from oath, hardship and stone.

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The novels

Enter the canon

Cover for Roots in the Ash

Book One of The Trees from Ashes Saga

Roots
in the Ash

1686-1849

From the Jacobite age to the discovery of a hidden family legacy, the opening novel follows the MacKails through rebellion, exile, execution and survival as one Irish farm becomes the keeper of truths that generations fail to understand.

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Cover for Shoots from the Ash

Book Two of The Trees from Ashes Saga

Shoots
from the Ash

1849-1950

The family story crosses Russia, Ireland and America as revolution, Titanic and two world wars reshape the descendants of Killiecrankie Farm. Survival brings new homes, but inherited secrets continue to travel with them.

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Cover for Where Branches Meet

Book Three of The Trees from Ashes Saga

Where
Branches Meet

1537-1689, 1950-1972

In post-war Naples, Joe MacKail’s gift for music creates a life his ancestors could never have imagined. As separated branches of the family draw together, old objects and unfinished stories acquire new meaning.

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Cover for Fruits from the Ash

Book Four of The Trees from Ashes Saga

Fruits
from the Ash

1973-1986

Rosanna MacKail emerges from private grief into international fame, love and motherhood. Yet the past remains present in her music, her family and the questions that follow her from Italy to Ireland and Leningrad.

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Cover for House of the Half-Told

Book Five of The Trees from Ashes Saga

House of
the Half-Told

1751-1813

Declan MacKail inherits a farm shadowed by his father’s execution and by truths deliberately withheld. His first-person account reveals the private cost of keeping a family alive when its history can never be told whole.

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Cover for A Name in Cyrillic

Book Six of The Trees from Ashes Saga

A Name
in Cyrillic

1793-1874

Fleeing revolutionary Paris, Rory MacKail reaches Russia and builds a household beneath another form of his name. Science, love and exile give him a future, but never release him entirely from the family that believes him dead.

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Cover for The Son Without a Name

Book Seven of The Trees from Ashes Saga

The Son
Without a Name

1740-1751

Lucien Alexandre Morel is born in France with his mother’s surname and Robbie MacKail’s blood. Denied the MacKail name, he grows into the shadow of a father whose ambition has already begun to corrupt An Scáth Dorcha, drawing him towards Ireland, inheritance and a legacy built on secrecy.

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Book Eight of The Trees from Ashes Saga

The Stone
Before the Ash

1265–1340, 1675

Before MacKail Croft, before Killiecrankie Farm, before the ashes, one family’s story begins with a broken oath, a threatened claim, and a stone raised against forgetting.

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Cover for Woman in the Frame

Book Nine of The Trees from Ashes Saga

Woman
in the Frame

1990-1993

Rosanna MacKail-Jones enters the world of cinema, where a public image can preserve, distort or conceal the woman behind it. Fame opens another chapter in the canon while testing marriage, identity and artistic loyalty.

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