MY NOVELS

THE DREAMCHASERS

Sometimes a dream is all you have…

The night after Jared Ellis kisses her under the mistletoe, nineteen-year-old Sarah Naylor dreams she is standing by the window of Fairfield Hall, waiting for him to come to her. In her dream she is wearing a pale green silk gown and meeting him as an equal, but in reality she is a servant at the Hall and Jared Ellis is the cousin of the owner’s wife. As a result, Sarah knows there’s little chance that the dream will ever come true – and even less chance after tragedy strikes on New Year’s Eve and she is forced to leave Fairfield.

But some dreams are impossible to forget and, as Sarah starts a new life away from everything she’s ever known, her dream – and memories of Jared – continue to haunt her thoughts, despite all her efforts to dismiss them.

It was published by Thorn Tree Publishing in February 2007
and its ISBN is 978-0-9554920-0-6

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CLOUGHFOLD

A haunting first novel…

This turbulent, historical romance, set on the wild and remote moors of Yorkshire and the peaceful, detached community of a French convent in the early part of the nineteenth century, is the story of the three loves in the life of Rowan Briggs.

Cloughfold, Rowan’s family home nestling in a hollow on the moors, is Rowan’s deep-rooted passion. Named by her mother after the rowan trees growing beside the house, it is Cloughfold that calls to Rowan and Cloughfold that she longed for while at school in France and, later, when staying reluctantly with her dominating aunt in Harrogate. But the house becomes filled with evil and foreboding when Rowan’s father begins an affair with the shrewish Lydia Goldthorpe and Rowan starts to feel that her beloved home has become a place from which she must escape.

Martin Goldthorpe, Lydia’s son, shares Rowan’s love of the moors and it is to Martin that she is betrothed. But her affection for him is based on pity. An accident has left Martin partly crippled and given to deep, depressive moods that frighten Rowan, as she does not know the dark secret in Martin’s past.

Trelawney Maddocks, the handsome Cornishman compelled by a family feud to travel the country earning a living until he inherits his grandfather’s farm, arrives at Cloughfold to assist Rowan’s father. Soon Rowan is forced to accept that her feelings for Martin mean little compared with her love for Trelawney, but it seems that they are never to find happiness together.

Influenced strongly by his sister, who is determined that Rowan should make a profitable marriage, and his mistress, who is determined that Rowan will marry her son and bind the two families inextricably together to strengthen her hold on Cloughfold, Rowan’s father sends Trelawney away when Rowan’s love for him is revealed.

But Rowan cannot forget him and while arrangements are made for her marriage to Martin, whose child she is now carrying, Rowan and Trelawney secretly plan to elope – a plan that ends in tragedy and destruction.

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THE ROMANY

Jane Harker, bored by her monotonous life as the genteel daughter of a Yorkshire landowner, is only too glad to take advantage of her widowed mother’s absence to help a young Romany and his mother who are forced to take refuge on the Harkers’ land after an accident.

As she helps the handsome Connor Herne recover from his injuries, Jane finds herself falling in love for the first time, but realizes that her mother will never permit her to marry a Romany. To gain her mother’s approval, Connor promises Jane that he will change his way of life and travel abroad to make his fortune. Jane vows that she will await his return.

But in the long months that follow his departure, Jane’s mother remarries and her new step-father makes it clear to Jane that she is unwelcome in their home. Her mother urges her to marry the charming but ruthless mineowner, Richard Darbishire, who is determined to have Jane as his wife. Angered by her persistent refusals, Richard rapes Jane so that she is compelled to marry him and she moved to his home to await the birth of her expected child.

With her marriage condemned at the church gate by a Romany’s curse, however, Jane’s life takes on a sinister and tragic air. She is haunted by the mysterious Helena Thompson and plagued with despair at the prospect of Connor’s reaction when he returns to find her already married. Then, to her horror, Jane begins to suspect that Richard is plotting her death and she is convinced that it is not the first time he has schemed to murder.

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THE BRADLEYS OF BROOKROYD

A family saga which recounts the triumphs and tragedies of the Bradley family for more than three generations…

As the Crimean War draws to an end, success seems assured for Tom Bradley and his three sons, James, Henry and Joseph. The war has greatly increased the demand for cloth, and their mill, situated on the edge of the bleak Yorkshire moors, is at last showing signs of prosperity. James is ruthlessly determined that the mill should become the most important business in the area, and the reactionary views of his father serve only to make James more dogmatic in the relentless pursuit of his ambition and he eagerly looks forward to the day when Henry and Joseph can join him in the running of the family business.

But disaster strikes when Henry dies of a fever on his way home from the Crimea. James is grief-stricken and finds consolation in the arms of a woman. The repercussions of this brief and impulsive affair are to affect him and his family for the rest of his life. Cursed by his mistress for abandoning her while she is carrying his child, James finds his carefully laid plans crumble around him. Bitterness, envy and family feuds are rife as the Bradleys become enmeshed in the events of the passing years.

As James approaches his hundredth birthday and sees his life in ruins, it seems that the mill – which had once held all his hopes and dreams – is now the symbol only of oppression, defeat and tragedy. Can the family ever escape from its bonds?

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