🎄Thrilled to host today's stop on this lovely festive Blog Tour🎄
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| Bonnier Zaffre 25 October 2020 My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book |
1850.
When Opal Sharp finds herself and her younger siblings suddenly orphaned and destitute, she thinks things can get no worse.
But soon three of them - including Opal - are struck down with the illness that took their father, and her brother Charlie is forced to make an impossible decision. Unable to afford a doctor, he knows the younger children will not survive. So, unbeknownst to Opal, Charlie takes their younger siblings to the workhouse. When she finds out, Opal is heartbroken.
Charlie starts taking risks to try to support what's left of the Sharp family and earn Opal's forgiveness, but he takes it too far and finds himself in trouble with the law. Soon, he is sent on a convict ship to Australia.
As poor Opal is forced to say goodbye to the final member of her family, she makes a promise to reunite them all one day.
My thoughts.
Opal is doing her best to keep her little family together but there are rough times ahead and with the best will in the world it doesn’t go easy for Opal and her young siblings. Tragedy strikes and fateful decisions have to made if they are all going to survive.
Opal is granted a piece of luck when she is offered the role of female companion to the wealthy Mrs King, a rather formidable character, who does her best to shape Orla for a very different role in society but Opal never forgets her young siblings and wonders what has happened to them all.
This is a lovely story with a delightful heroine who has more than enough angst in her life and yet her fortitude and resilience shines through some rather dark moments in the story. I enjoy how the author lets us know what was going on in the lives of Opal’s siblings so although she herself has lost track of them we, the reader, are privileged to know more than Opal.
All the stands start to come together in a story which warms the heart whilst at the same time tugs away at the heartstrings. I so wanted life to be kind to all of the siblings and all credit to the author for giving us such light and shade, elements of joy combined with moments of great sorrow. The author writes with such consideration for her characters that it is easy to picture them in the scenes which she so lovingly recreates. I am sure that fans of the author’s historical sagas will be delighted with this latest offering.
The Winter Promise is the first in a new themed series of historical sagas by this gifted author and if this first book is anything to go by I am sure that the series is going to be just wonderful. I can’t wait to read more...
About the Author
Rosie Goodwin is the author of over twenty bestselling novels. She is the first author in the world to be allowed to follow three of Catherine Cookson's trilogies with her own sequels. Having worked in the social services sector for many years, then fostered a number of children, she is now a full-time novelist. Rosie lives in Nuneaton, the setting for many of her books, with her husband and their beloved dogs.
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