Girls simply weren't supposed to curl in 1880s Scotland. Curling was a sport that men played. "The manly Scottish exercise," they called it. That didn't matter to twelve-year-old Ailsa Maclaren, who took to the ice to learn the game from her father, over the oft-repeated objections of the mouthy John Carswell. Ailsa's curling journey takes her to the first women's bonspiel in Scotland, the Scottish Women's Championship, and the Women's World Championship in Canada. Along the way, she meets the charming and very, very handsome Lucas Plotcok. And therein lies the real tale.The Shattered Curling Stone is a work of historical fiction, set in late- 1800s Scotland. It is an homage, of sorts, to women pioneers not only in the sport of curling, but in all walks of life.