" A storm in Scotland was like nothing she'd ever experienced in London. Here, the elements felt alive, sentient. This storm was a raging monster that had grown in fury since yesterday.
Sometimes, she thought Scotland was more than a country, more than a rough and magnificent land with a border created by men, written on a map, and defended for hundreds of years. Scotland was almost a living creature that could turn and bite your hand if you didn't speak about it in fond and loving tones.
When she walked the hills and glens surrounding Drumvagen, she sometimes felt like she was being watched. Not by living inhabitants, but those who'd gone before, proud men and women who hated the English and now hovered over their land to protest her appearance.
For all her imagination, she didn't believe in the hundreds of folktales Brianag told the children. The trees weren't alive; they were simply trees. Brownies didn't do chores for obedient children. Sea creatures in the shape of horses didn't bedevil the coast.
Yet something about this storm was otherworldly, as if God were punishing them. "

― Karen Ranney , The Virgin of Clan Sinclair (Clan Sinclair, #3)