On Calvary, the wind never stops...
In the south Atlantic Ocean, sits the island of El Secredo - named Calvary by the first missionary settlers.
Little has changed in Calvary since Jebusa Horne first landed on the island and proclaimed it fit for Christendom, in the late 19th century.
The world, meanwhile, has been through a Great War; prohibition and the jazz age have been and gone...
When Reverend Smith Prudhomme and his wife came to continue the missionary on Calvary, at worse the Reverend had been warned of 'Calvary beer'.
What he didn't expect was Sanchia Mullyon.
Even as a child, Sanchia was different from the rest of the islanders.
Spirited, questioning and highly imaginative, the islanders' were disturbed by her apparent wildness - as wild as the winds that batter Calvary.
Scared by her, both her parents and other elders tried to literally beat what they see is the 'devil' out of Sanchia.
But cruelty begets cruelty and Sanchia becomes known for her brutal cruelness - both from her strength and her words.
The only thing Sanchia seems affected by is the island and its animals; it's well known she can't bear to see the suffering of animals.
Sanchia is now of marriageable age. And on an island that has an influx of men, women are highly prized.
She was promised in her cradle, to Gregory Jodrell; but in her usual fashion, Sanchia refuses to marry not only him, but also any other Calvary man.
With a sense of unease in the island community, Reverend Smith is unsure of how to approach the problem.
Moreover, Sanchia and by extension, his sympathetic wife Mrs Prudhomme, are chipping away at his once narrow minded views...
Then one stormy night, Sanchia in fear for her life, demands to be married to Gregory, right then and there.
Even though it flies in face of all tradition, bordering on insulting, Reverend Smith marries them anyway.
If the Islanders had hoped it would 'tame' Sanchia, they were wrong. If anything, she's tamed Gregory.
And when a shipwreck lands the writer, Miss Lenox Robbins, and a mysterious man who can't talk on their shores, Calvary and Sanchia are forever changed...
A gripping and intense novel, When The Wind Blows is a tale of a woman's fortitude in the face of her home and community.
'Miss Steen is a superb manipulator of scene, and she makes her places as alive as her people' - Daily Telegraph
'Rich and enjoyable' - The Observer
'fine scenes and piquant portraits' - The Sunday Times
'a vivid narrative' - Manchester Guardian
'full of colour and character' - John o' London's Weekly
'rich, lavish, violent, passionate' -Evening News
Marguerite Steen (12 May 1894 - 4 August 1975) was a British writer. Very much at home among creative people, she wrote biographies of the Terrys, of her friend Hugh Walpole, of the 18th century poet and actress (and sometime mistress to the Prince of Wales) Mary 'Perdita' Robinson, and of her own lover, the artist Sir William Nicholson. Her first major success was Matador,for which she drew on her love of Spain, and of bullfighting. Also a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic was her massive saga of the slave-trade and Bristol shipping, The Sun Is My Undoing. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1951.
Genre: Literary Fiction
In the south Atlantic Ocean, sits the island of El Secredo - named Calvary by the first missionary settlers.
Little has changed in Calvary since Jebusa Horne first landed on the island and proclaimed it fit for Christendom, in the late 19th century.
The world, meanwhile, has been through a Great War; prohibition and the jazz age have been and gone...
When Reverend Smith Prudhomme and his wife came to continue the missionary on Calvary, at worse the Reverend had been warned of 'Calvary beer'.
What he didn't expect was Sanchia Mullyon.
Even as a child, Sanchia was different from the rest of the islanders.
Spirited, questioning and highly imaginative, the islanders' were disturbed by her apparent wildness - as wild as the winds that batter Calvary.
Scared by her, both her parents and other elders tried to literally beat what they see is the 'devil' out of Sanchia.
But cruelty begets cruelty and Sanchia becomes known for her brutal cruelness - both from her strength and her words.
The only thing Sanchia seems affected by is the island and its animals; it's well known she can't bear to see the suffering of animals.
Sanchia is now of marriageable age. And on an island that has an influx of men, women are highly prized.
She was promised in her cradle, to Gregory Jodrell; but in her usual fashion, Sanchia refuses to marry not only him, but also any other Calvary man.
With a sense of unease in the island community, Reverend Smith is unsure of how to approach the problem.
Moreover, Sanchia and by extension, his sympathetic wife Mrs Prudhomme, are chipping away at his once narrow minded views...
Then one stormy night, Sanchia in fear for her life, demands to be married to Gregory, right then and there.
Even though it flies in face of all tradition, bordering on insulting, Reverend Smith marries them anyway.
If the Islanders had hoped it would 'tame' Sanchia, they were wrong. If anything, she's tamed Gregory.
And when a shipwreck lands the writer, Miss Lenox Robbins, and a mysterious man who can't talk on their shores, Calvary and Sanchia are forever changed...
A gripping and intense novel, When The Wind Blows is a tale of a woman's fortitude in the face of her home and community.
Praise for Marguerite Steen
'Miss Steen is a superb manipulator of scene, and she makes her places as alive as her people' - Daily Telegraph
'Rich and enjoyable' - The Observer
'fine scenes and piquant portraits' - The Sunday Times
'a vivid narrative' - Manchester Guardian
'full of colour and character' - John o' London's Weekly
'rich, lavish, violent, passionate' -Evening News
Marguerite Steen (12 May 1894 - 4 August 1975) was a British writer. Very much at home among creative people, she wrote biographies of the Terrys, of her friend Hugh Walpole, of the 18th century poet and actress (and sometime mistress to the Prince of Wales) Mary 'Perdita' Robinson, and of her own lover, the artist Sir William Nicholson. Her first major success was Matador,for which she drew on her love of Spain, and of bullfighting. Also a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic was her massive saga of the slave-trade and Bristol shipping, The Sun Is My Undoing. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1951.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Used availability for Marguerite Steen's When the Wind Blows