A Fire in Their Hearts

'A memorable novel' - The Sunday Times
'A gripping story' - The Scotsman
'A poignant love story suffused with a deep, moving humanity' - The Herald
Longlisted for the 2026 Saltires, Scotland's National Book Awards - Fiction Book of the Year

SCOTLAND, 1662.
One love. One belief. One eternal flame.

As civil war tears through the country and King Charles II tightens his grip on the Church of Scotland, childhood sweethearts Violet and Samuel are drawn into a dangerous struggle for the freedom to follow their belief. Their connection - quiet, instinctive, and deeply rooted - becomes the anchor that steadies them as the world closes in.

Branded as rebels and imprisoned in Greyfriars Kirkyard, they are forced from their homeland and sent to work on the sugar plantations of Barbados. When a shipwreck off Orkney separates them, Violet must navigate a foreign land alone, holding fast to the steady belief that Samuel may still be alive.

From Scotland's lowlands to the Caribbean's unforgiving plantations, A Fire in Their Hearts follows two souls bound by conviction and a love that endures - across oceans, war and captivity. Inspired by extraordinary true events of the seventeenth-century Killing Times, it is a story of resilience, faith and an unextinguished flame.

A Fire in Their Hearts is a powerful, epic tale of love, faith and survival by the bestselling author of The Last Witch of Scotland, Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year 2024.

'Heartfelt and devastating . . . Philip Paris's remarkable story-telling brings some of the darkest episodes in Scottish history memorably to light.'
S.G. MacLEAN, bestselling author of The Bookseller of Inverness

'A beautifully written page-turner. Highly recommended.'
ELISABETH GIFFORD, author of The Lost Lights of St Kilda