Louise Harvey seems destined for the sort of future in upper class Victorian society which her beauty and money and accomplishments fit her for. But she longs to escape from the sterility of life in her father's grand house in London, and when her knight in shining armour arrives in the shape of a young farmer driving a wagonette and selling eggs and butter below stairs, she is ready to throw up all her advantages and marry him.
In this first volume of a series of novels Sarah Shears brilliantly and touchingly depicts the passion and intensity of young love. It has to thrive in a difficult environment and it takes all Louise's courage and determination to come to terms with the cramped old farmhouse and her hostile mother-in-law', with the early rising and the perpetual comings and goings of farm labourers and relatives. At the same time she is prey to the emotions which afflict a young wife - to a sense of doors closing, attraction to other men, the pain that accompanies childbirth and death.
Louise's story is ultimately a triumphant one stretching from the 1870's to the present day, which will be further chronicled in Louise's Daughters and Louise's Inheritance appearing over the next few months. The story unfolds among the hopfields and market gardens of Kent, and is set against a hundred year panorama of English country life represented by the cluster of folk who work at Roberts Farm and whose destinies sometimes diverge from that of their young mistress. In the hard times as well as the high days and holidays Miss Shears conjures up a vanished world of community and co-operation which will arouse nostalgia in the old and admiration in the young.
Genre: Historical
In this first volume of a series of novels Sarah Shears brilliantly and touchingly depicts the passion and intensity of young love. It has to thrive in a difficult environment and it takes all Louise's courage and determination to come to terms with the cramped old farmhouse and her hostile mother-in-law', with the early rising and the perpetual comings and goings of farm labourers and relatives. At the same time she is prey to the emotions which afflict a young wife - to a sense of doors closing, attraction to other men, the pain that accompanies childbirth and death.
Louise's story is ultimately a triumphant one stretching from the 1870's to the present day, which will be further chronicled in Louise's Daughters and Louise's Inheritance appearing over the next few months. The story unfolds among the hopfields and market gardens of Kent, and is set against a hundred year panorama of English country life represented by the cluster of folk who work at Roberts Farm and whose destinies sometimes diverge from that of their young mistress. In the hard times as well as the high days and holidays Miss Shears conjures up a vanished world of community and co-operation which will arouse nostalgia in the old and admiration in the young.
Genre: Historical
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