Late Harvest
Exmoor, England, early 19th century. Peggy Shawe inherits the family farm when her father dies, although marriage means that her husband will own it. Circumstances bring two suitors. One, James Bright, is the down-to-earth son of a neighboring farmer. The other, Ralph Duggan, is her true love, but lives twelve miles away on the coast. The son of a shipbuilder, Ralph is caught up in smuggling over the years. As Peggy is involved with both these men during the long span of her life, she is faced with danger and hard decisions as the wheel of the seasons turns through the country life on Exmoor.
This is a long, complex family saga with settings that bring the reader deeply into old-time farm life and into the coastal world of those who follow the sea. The smuggling issues cause danger and crises of loyalty and conscience for Peggy. Women’s issues are touched on, but while she is feisty and independent, Peggy is a woman of her time. As usual, Valerie Anand, writing as Fiona Buckley, creates a three-dimensional historical world and a book that is hard to put down.
