The Velvet Shadow — Angela Elwell Hunt

"It is said that as Cahira, daughter of the great Irish king Rory O'Connor, lay dying of a wound from a Norman blade, she lifted her hand toward heaven and beseeched God that other would follow after her, bright stars who would break forth from the courses to which they are bound and restore right in this murderous world..."

To Kathleen O'Connor, Cahira's story is nothing more than a charming legend-until her research divulges that several of Cahira's heirs did, indeed, leave the traditional roles of womanhood to fight for right. Stunned, Kathleen realizes she herself bears Cahira's mark. Is Kathleen destined to continue the legacy in the 21st century?

To discover how the histories of these women relate to her own future, she must delve deep into the past to the truth about The Heirs of Cahira O'Connor...

When Glanna O'Connor, a young medical student in Boston, is cut off from her family in Charleston at the start of the Civil War, she decides to disguise herself and move south with the Union Army. While in disguise, she must prove herself as a soldier and a doctor, both to her messmates and to Major Alden Haynes, brother to the man she has tentatively agreed to marry...