The Shadow of the Sycamores traces the fortunes of the Rae family, from Henry Rae's birth in 1871, when his drunken father, a blacksmith, forgets the name chosen for him, to his old age in the 1940s. We follow Henry's story as he leaves home at 13 to work as "orra loon" at a farm and eventually meets his beloved future wife, Fay, when he finds a new job at The Sycamores, a nursing home for the mentally disordered and the elderly. This epic tale, from one of north-east Scotland's most renowned novelists, is romantic and heartrendingly tragic.