Return of the Cruithin is the third book in the Lioslaith series following Last of the Painted Ones and Rivers of Sand. It continues the remarkable adventure of a young, self-empowered Pict woman on a quest for liberation and justness during the period of Scotland's struggling emergence as a nation while Britain endures wave after wave of Viking colonization. Stranded in the New Lands beyond the vestrvegr, Lioslaith waits out the winter learning the customs of the Anishinaabe of the Land of Many Lakes where the chieftain, Sakima dubs her the 'Painted One Who Fell through a Hole in the Sky'. In a less than ceremonious return to Pictavia, marred by treachery and heartbreak, Lioslaith, by happenstance, arrives in unfamiliar surroundings at the Royal Court at Forteviot facing an uncertain future.