Before You Begin

Before you begin.

David Balfour enters Edinburgh with money in his pocket and danger still at his heels. The Appin murder has left an innocent man facing judgment, Alan Breck remains a hunted rebel, and David's determination to speak the truth draws the attention of men whose courtesy conceals the full weight of government power.

Then he meets Catriona Drummond: proud, quick-minded, fiercely loyal, and burdened by a father whose shifting schemes threaten everyone around him. What begins as a political adventure opens into something more intimate — a story about honor, misread hearts, and the perilous distance between protecting someone and trusting them.

Robert Louis Stevenson published Catriona in 1893 as the sequel to Kidnapped. He returns to David's plainspoken voice and to the divided Scotland of 1751, but widens the road from Edinburgh and the Bass Rock to Holland, Dunkirk, and Paris. Legal intrigue, Jacobite loyalties, sea travel, comedy, and courtship all move together with Stevenson's characteristic speed.

Enter the illustrated world that follows as David does: alert to every face, every promise, and every road that may lead either toward freedom or deeper into the net.