This is the time of witch-mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands. Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbours. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even to the remote Tidelands – the marshy landscape of the south coast.Īlinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of civil war between renegade King and rebellious Parliament.

A dangerous time for a woman to be different. The rewards are life-changing: the family could return to their beloved Tidelands, and Alinor could rule where she was once lower than a servant.Īlinor’s son, Rob, is determined to stay clear of the war, but when he and his nephew set out to free Ned from execution for treason and Rowan from a convict deportation to Barbados, they find themselves enmeshed in the creation of an imposter Prince of Wales-a surrogate baby to the queen.įrom the last battle in the desolate Somerset Levels to the hidden caves on the slave island of Barbados, this third volume of an epic story follows a family from one end of the empire to another, to find a new dawn in a world which is opening up before them with greater rewards and dangers than ever before.England 1648. Instead, Alinor has been coaxed by the manipulative Livia to save the queen from the coming siege. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister, Alinor, that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant, Rowan, to join the rebel army. It is 1685, England is on the brink of a renewed civil war against the Stuart kings and many families are bitterly divided.

The “sweeping” (Parade) and “superb” (People) Fairmile series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory continues as the fiercely independent Alinor and her family find themselves entangled in palace intrigue, political upheaval, and life-changing secrets in 17th-century England.

The fairmile series