THE SILKEN THREAD
Margaret Montgomery was the daughter of one of Paisley's most thriving silk weavers, but she grew up wanting more than the comfortable home and secure income of a weavers wife. Despairing of the poverty she sees in the town, Margaret finds her vocation as a charity worker and teacher in the local hospital. But she also discovers a mystery. For while her philanthropic ideals are tolerated, even accepted, by her parents, Margaret's genuine affection for childhood friend William Todd is greeted with disapproval. Yet Margaret is not to know of how intimately the fortunes of her family are entwined with those of the Todds'. Unaware that in the summer of 1745, the year her father began working at Peter Todd's weaving shop, an accident at the celebrated Silver Bells horse race drew the Montgomerys and the Todds closer and further apart than they could have ever imagined..........

A STRANGER IN THE TOWN
After working abroad for seven years as a naval surgeon, Adam Montgomery returns to his father's house in Paisley in the summer of 1831 and makes an instant impression upon young Elizabeth Cunningham. An orphan girl, she has kept house for the domineering Rab Montomery and his other sons, Mathew and James for several years, becoming accustomed to their arguments about the family weaving business. But Adam's presence creates unprecedented tensions for both her and the household. Adam has no intention of submitting to his father's demands and follow his brothers into shawl manufacturing. He is a doctor and in an industrial town with the dreaded scourge of cholera never far away, every man with medical knowledge is needed. Something else keeps him in Paisley. The beautiful Helen Grant.............

THE DAMASK DAYS
Christian Knox is a girl of dreams - of a life beyond that of a Paisley housewife, of a world of learning beyond her ladies' school, of possibilities her father dismisses as 'daft ideas'. But Christian is determined, and when her father refuses to finance her further education she resolves pay for it herself, by working as a tambourer, embroidering for the local textile manufacturers. Soon she is managing a group of tambouring women on behalf of Paisley's biggest weavers, catching the eye of clients like Angus Fraser, a man old enough to be her father, but wise enough to appreciate her talents. Plunged into the fascinating world of Scotland's fledging textile industry, Christian's Lowland resolve and female flair begin to make their mark - and in the shape of her greatest inspiration, the Paisley Shawl, it is a mark that will be remembered for generations to come..........

THE DANCING STONE
In the autumn of 1913, Kirsty Lennox's children swell with hope for the future, their perspective interests in Paisley's furniture and clothing trades ample reward for the recent family trials. Alex who has left as a headstrong young craftsman and has returned a successful Glasgow businessman, nutures high hopes for the further expansion of the family's cabinet-making business. Caitlin, a budding dress designer, finds a suitable outlet for her talents at the shop run by her mother and Rose Hamilton, an independently wealthy and strong-minded young woman. Alex's attention, however is also drawn to Roses's unconventional nature, sparking something deeper than a business relationship. Yet as the great war looms, the sudden appearance of a four-year-old girl becomes the powerful catalyst for the change in their lives - the whole family is forced to face the harsher realities of separation, tragedy and unexpected emotional wakening.......

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