Fortune's Daughter by Dilly Court published by Harper Collins

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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