The River Maiden by Meredith Stoddard

When a modern, independent woman’s plans collide with an ancient prophecy, her life hangs in the balance. “Some of us just keep our ghosts closer to the surface.” Sarah MacAlpin has plenty of ghosts. Her mother's mental illness plagued her early years, and her grandmother who raised her died when she was just eighteen. In spite of her difficult upbringing she’s built a life for herself. One of the things that still haunts her is a song that her grandmother taught her. Growing up in the Blue Ridge mountains there were plenty of folk songs to learn, but the one Granny taught her was from her home in Scotland, in Gaelic, and unlike any other Sarah has heard. Her fascination with that song and many others leads her to pursue a career in folklore. While researching her dissertation, she hears another version of her grandmother’s song from a woman in Nova Scotia. Thinking it is the key to her dissertation thesis and her academic future, she pursues that song with the help of a new colleague from Scotland, Dermot Sinclair. Trust doesn’t come easy for Sarah. In spite of her attraction to Dermot, she isn’t sure that he is being entirely honest with her. But there is something more sinister than the mysterious Scot lurking around Sarah’s life. A series of near accidents and strained relationships have her on edge. She begins to worry for her own mental health as her research progresses, but her life begins to unravel. Can she keep it together long enough to find the source of the song? Read the first in the series where Celtic legends and modern life blend into an adventure full of Celts, cauldrons, mystery and moonshine.