The Last Season
In 1863, young teenager Cassandra Drayton, only daughter and heiress of Lord James Drayton, strikes up a friendship with young stable boy Crispin St. John. Their friendship, growing at the Draytons’ palatial home in rural England, is abruptly ended after Crispin teaches Cassandra to ride and she is thrown from her horse and injured.
Unwilling to return to a life of poverty in London, Crispin manages to take ship to India, where he is befriended by other English people and in short order becomes a respected young businessman. Meanwhile Cassandra matures to become a beautiful young woman finding many potential suitors during her coming-out season in London. She travels with her father to the U.S., enjoying society life in New York and travelling to the Midwest.
But back in London the family’s fortunes fail. Staff are let go, possessions are sold, poverty looms. Despite her beauty, Cassandra is no longer the desirable heiress with hopes of marriage into the nobility. Crispin, meanwhile, is now a respected gentleman of substance. The question remains: will that early friendship become a lasting relationship?
This Victorian romance follows a well-worn path with themes and characters we have met before. In places the research is inadequate and the language too modern. With this first novel under their belt, the writers are free to move on to develop concepts and characters of greater depth and uniqueness.
