Roger Derham was researching medical techniques through history when he finds two letters written by an Irishwoman, one of which is in Arabic, which leads him down a path of discovery about this woman and her history. This book is a fictionalised account of her life and love.

And it's a good one. I had known about the Barbary Pirates and Baltimore before, (Des Elkin's Stolen Village is a very readable account) so that much of the story wasn't a revelation, but this was an interesting look at the life of a woman who embraced the Islamic world and seemed to have made a success of the life she found there. She finds herself constrained by the world around her but not much more than she was in Ireland, and there's less of a chance of her being burn at the stake as a witch for her knowledge.

Her quest for a role in the world and love is an interesting one and I would look for more by this author. ( )