It was love at first sight . . . but their match was forbidden!

Exmoor, 1800. When farmer’s daughter Peggy Shawe meets the charismatic Ralph Duggan, son of a so-called ‘free trader’, she knows he’s ‘the one’. But her mother is determined to prevent the match, and sends her daughter to live with the Duggan family for six weeks, believing she will be put off marriage to Ralph when she discovers what life is like among a smuggling family.

Matters take a dramatic turn however when Ralph’s brother Philip is suspected of murder, and they are both despatched to distant relatives across the Atlantic. Heartbroken, Peggy vows to be reunited with her lover one day. But it will be several years before she and Ralph are destined to meet again – and in very different circumstances . . .

This passionate West Country smuggling saga set in the early 19th-century is an intriguing departure for Tudor mystery writer Fiona Buckley.