Sarnia

Book Details:

Hardback edition published by Hamish Hamilton, London, 1974. First edition

Sleeve notes:

When Sarnia, poor but contented with her position as one of the first lady clerks in a City banking house, is persuaded by her new-found rich and seemingly kindly relations, the Jelains, to leave m id-Victorian London for a holiday in the softer landscape of Guernsey, she imagines that she will soon be back to where the worthy Michael awaits her.

Guernsey at first seems a garden of Eden in comparison with the drudgery of work in London. There are balls and entertainments, the flattering attentions of her cousin Edmund, an exciting encounter with a scion of one of the island's aristocratic families, the d'Aurignys. But suddenly light-hearted gaiety is replaced by a dark cloud of uncertainty when she encounters the father she had long presumed dead. Their first meeting is deeply wounding to her sensibilities, but Sarnia is no milk-and-water girl, and moves into her father's crumbling old mansion to care for him in his sickness.

It is then she encounters horror, and fear which becomes terror; and uncertainty is transformed into the certainty that she will not be allowed to live unless she agrees to a future offering no single ray of happiness.

Book source:

Terry Jenkins

Book Details:

Hardback edition published by Hamish Hamilton, London, 1974. First edition

Sleeve notes:

Hypnotic suspense

. . . Turbulent Romance 

. . . A Tale to Leave you Breathless

Sarnia - Fiercely independent, wonderful, beautiful, a woman who submits to no man. Edmund Jelain--Darkly handsome, a man who savagely seizes what he desires. Theirs is a fiery clash of wills which sweeps up two powerful families in a storm of treachery--and awakens a long-slumbering legacy of terror...

Sarnia - Ranging from the glittering excitement of Post-Regency London to the lush mystery of an enchanted isle--here is a saga both beguiling and taut with suspense.

Sarnia - A masterwork of storytelling by a dazzling new talent, Hilary Ford. . . Weaves a mesmerizing spell and holds the reader fast . . .

Book source:

Terry Jenkins

Book Details:

Paperback edition published by Pan Books, London, 1976. First printing.

Sleeve notes:

Her mother's past threatened Sarnia Lorimer's life and sanity. A visit to Guernsey in the summer of 1832 brought Sarnia face to face with the father she thought dead. Soon she realised that beneath the lavish entertainments provided by her new-found cousins lurked dark and menacing forces.

As conflict, intrigue and betrayal lead to shame and horror, Sarnia can look to only one man for help - an impudent rake whose advances she had scorned . . .

Book source:

Terry Jenkins