ISBN: 9780701188283

Two women, in two different centuries, both under siege: the brilliant second novel from the acclaimed author of Pollard.      ''Pull yourself together,… Plus…

Two women, in two different centuries, both under siege: the brilliant second novel from the acclaimed author of Pollard.      ''Pull yourself together, girl…’.''     Mia Morgan, in the middle of her life, is a woman under siege. By the difficult relationship with her blind and aging father; memories of her late lover, John, thirty years her senior; and a dark family secret that still threatens to surface.      She is also accused of living in the past. Alone in the London flat she once shared with John, her days are spent researching the life of a dead woman. This woman is Lady Brilliana Harley, who during the English Civil War, in the absence of her husband and sons, defended her home Brampton Bryan Castle during a prolonged siege by Royalist troops.      Who was this woman of strength and mettle? As Mia delves into the letters and private prayers of Brilliana’''s life, she seeks to understand a person and a time that, despite being centuries old, holds a mirror to her own age and reflects herself back at her.     Darkling is a bold and revolutionary undertaking: brilliantly weaving original seventeenth-century documents into a modern storyline. Laura Beatty beautifully captures a strong sense of place and Englishness, and shows how the boundary line between the past and present can often be unbearably thin. Laura Beatty, Books, Fiction and Literature, Darkling Books>Fiction and Literature, Random House UK<

ISBN: 9780701188283

Mia Morgan, in the middle of her life, is a woman under siege: by memories of her late lover, by the relationship with her blind father, and by a family secret she can't forget. She is al… Plus…

Mia Morgan, in the middle of her life, is a woman under siege: by memories of her late lover, by the relationship with her blind father, and by a family secret she can't forget. She is also accused of living in the past: her days are spent amid the life and letters of Lady Brilliana Harley, who lived nearly four hundred years ago during the English Civil War. Brilliana Harley is a Puritan, a lone Roundhead in a county of Royalists, and it is not long before her enemies sit down in siege around her. As cannon-shot rains down upon her castle, she alone must captain a garrison of men and defend her home. Out of Brilliana's words emerges a woman of courage and conviction, a loving mother and capable wife, dutiful even under duress. As Mia pieces her together, she finds that it is through Brilliana's life, so different and yet so similar, that she can come to understand her own. Darkling is a revolutionary undertaking: an echoing of two lives across the centuries, deftly weaving original seventeenth-century documents into the fabric of a modern fiction. The result is a book of voices, past and present, exquisitely observed and skilfully summoned. Fiction Fiction eBook, Random House<