The Carey family call Rockwood home until their
flighty mother goes off to London to seek fame and fortune as an opera singer,
a successful career
she gave up when she married their father, a botanist who also goes off to locate some lost plants up a remote
mountain in Asia.
Abandoned by their parents and left to fight for
themselves, the children comprising of headstrong Rosalind Carey, sister
Patricia, brother Bertie who stands to inherit the castle, bookworm Walter and
their grandfather Sir Lucien who is suffering with dementia after a long career
in the Navy.
But their once much-loved home is crumbling like
the family that lives within it. Living hand to mouth and desperate to
provide for the estate that depends on them, the Carey family are one debt away
from ruin. Until the day comes when the dashing Piers Blanchard appears on
their doorstep from Cornwall, claiming he is Rosalind’s distant cousin and that
Rockwood Castle is his.
Piers says he wants to help pay off the family’s
debts. But how can Rosalind be sure he isn’t out to take what is his and leave
them all homeless?
This is a novel set Devon in 1839 and not my usual type of book, however I found it really enjoyable, although it did feel extremely long! At the very start of the book, Rosalind is a young girl who encounters smugglers and this story stays in the background.
To me the characters were like something out of a Jane Eyre or Daphne Du Maurier novel, and I could often
see myself imagining Judy Dench as Lady Pentelow, and Keira Knightly as
Rosalind…the jury is still out in my mind as to who would play Piers!
The book was pure escapism and if you love the classics like
Pride and Prejudice or Jamaica Inn then you will love this story. I am
delighted to learn that this is the first of six books in this series.
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