Father William's Daughter

"If an ordinary childhood was closed to me, it simply meant that I had to learn to be extraordinary. Francesca Saliba; the refugee, the mysterious foreigner, the musician, the priest's daughter. Father William's daughter......" Francesca Saliba's father dies in a cleverly conducted traffic accident when she was eleven. As the only witness, she knew it was murder but only her English uncle, a West Country parish priest, believed her story. Her father's death marked the end of her Maltese childhood: within days, she had been spirited out of the country, her passport had been revoked and she found herself living in the eccentric little world of the one relative prepared to take her in - Father William Arrowsmith, the most English of men, the most Catholics of priests. Father William's daughter tells the story of a refugee forced to start a new life in the alien world of an English market town and traces Francesca's journey home ten years later, where she begins her quest to discover why her father was killed and who betrayed him. But as Francesca and her long-suffering guardian revisit the murky post-independence world of her childhood, they are forced to acknowledge that the truth may be more elusive and more distressing than they could ever have imagined. Told alternatively through the eyes of Francesca and the unwritten memoirs of Fr William, the novel ultimately pays tribute to the most unlikely of friendships forged across cultures and generations, and the enduring power of friendship when all other loyalties are challenged.


Genre: Thriller