Book Blurb
Many years have passed since the dramatic events of Pride and Prejudice. In The Cousins of Pemberley series we follow a new generation of heroines - cousins with lives as different and interesting as those enjoyed by their mothers.
Mary Bennet - overlooked, laughed at, despised - married a missionary and vanished into a life of service out in Africa. But now Miriam, her daughter, is coming to England, disliking everything she has been told about her family.
Her aunts and cousins are expecting someone quiet, dull and bookish, just like her mother, not the quick-tempered, impulsive girl who arrives.
How can this adventurous girl with her desire for freedom possibly fit into their well ordered world? And what havoc will she cause as she tries?
Book Extract
The three-masted sailing ship, Sea Sprite, laden with silk, tea and spices, was heading for the English Channel, running before the wind. The voyage up the west coast of Africa from Cape Town had been fast and even the gale they had encountered in the Bay of Biscay had not prevented them from making very good time.
Now they were sailing towards the English Channel and it was growing dark. The skies were full of rain clouds and the temperature had dropped violently as they left the tropics behind and headed for the colder northern waters.
There were only a few passengers on board - traders from Hong Kong coming home with their wives and fortunes, travelling first class, eager to buy land and settle back in England, several government officials who kept their thoughts and ideas to themselves and a clerical gentleman and his family who had boarded at Cape Town, whose cabins were the cheapest, two decks below the fresh air with no portholes.
Tall and thin, with a face burnt brown by the African sun, the Reverend Poole had brought on board his wife, his sixteen year old daughter and another young girl whom most people took to be another daughter, until she was introduced as a Miss Miriam Malliot who was travelling under their protection until they reached England.
Miriam appreciated that it was kind of them to take care of her but she was desperate to be free of their kindly attentions. Mrs Poole was a short, stout woman whose abiding passions in life were her husband’s career in the church - she was determined that one day he would become a bishop - and finding a wealthy husband for her daughter.
She knew it was her Christian duty to guard Miriam on this journey until she could hand her over to her relations, but she found the girl difficult and uncooperative. She had hoped that Miriam would be company for Delphine, but whenever she wanted her, she was missing - out on the deck or wandering all over the vessel, asking questions, getting in the sailors’ way as they went about their duties.
Miriam found Mrs Poole’s guardianship just as irksome; she couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had had to obey so many rules and regulations. Her parents, absorbed with their missionary work, had paid her little attention whilst she was a child. Those bright days of freedom had lessened slightly when she attended the school for young ladies where she was not allowed to run but only walk, and singing was confined to hymns and psalms. She had been punished when she had been heard singing one of the African songs her little friends had taught her.
She had found her patience sorely tried by Delphine, who was small and pretty with big blue eyes and fair curls. She had a trick of looking up at gentlemen through her lashes and her lips would tremble as if she wanted to give some compliment, but never did.
Miriam had tried to encourage her to accompany her on deck, explaining that the fresh air would do wonders for the vapours caused by the motion of the ship, but Delphine just squealed when the vessel rolled and felt faint. To her disgust, Miriam had also come to realise that the other girl was always inclined to be indisposed when one of the officers was nearby, relying on him to support her languishing form, to help carry her below, or bring her a sustaining drink.
But now, with the weather worsening, Delphine refused to leave their cabin and so Miriam stood alone, as far for’ard as she could get on deck, glorying in the rise and fall of the vessel, the wind tearing her long red hair into a flying battle flag, the pins and bonnet long gone overboard in the wind.
“Miss Malliot! - what are you doing on deck? Would you please be so kind as to go below. We are running into bad weather. I have asked you before - several times.”
Miriam glanced round. It was the First Officer Nicholas Sullivan; tall, bronzed by the weather, broad shouldered, his fair hair clubbed back in a short plait that was thicker than hers. His bright grey eyes always seemed to have a disapproving expression when he was talking to her.
Ever since she had come on board, he had found occasion to chide her about her behaviour. He did not approve of her talking to the crew, or wandering around the decks, or refusing to take shelter when they hit a squall.
Once she had taken several steps up the rigging to get a better view of a family of dolphins keeping the ship company. Mr Sullivan had shouted at her quite loudly to get down immediately, even though she knew she was as sure footed as most of his sailors.
It was quite obvious to Miriam that he wished she would emulate Delphine’s behaviour and act with more modesty and decorum. He did not understand, and showed no tendency so to do, that she enjoyed the rough weather, that the wind and spray invigorated her and raised her from the depression of her circumstances.
But, on the other hand, when the weather had been fair, Mr Sullivan had been constantly at her side to point out the shoals of flying fish that surrounded the vessel and when they crossed the equator, he had allowed her to be greeted by one of the sailors, dressed as Neptune, in an uproarious ceremony for those who had not crossed the equator before. The Pooles had retired to their cabins; they did not care for such rough events, which the Reverend also thought were surely un-Christian, probably Pagan.
There was, however, something about the First Officer that irritated Miriam, although she would have been surprised to discover that she irritated him in return. The stubborn streak they both had running through their characters resulted, inevitably, in a clash of wills.
Author Bio
Fiction has always been my go-to world, a place of entertainment, excitement and imagination - I am told that I wrote my first story when I was four about a lady who had twenty children! Sadly it has been lost for posterity.
I have been writing all my life in the time I could spare from having a “proper job”, mostly for children under the name of Linda Blake, stories of ballet dancers, pony riding and talking animals! Not all in the same book!
But my love of romance, a great tendency to say “What if..?” and the endearing characters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have now resulted in a series of books that will take the reader forward to the next generation of heroines.
I am retired, live in Kent and am a keen member of my local drama group. Directing and acting take up a lot of my time - I have been given the onerous task of writing the Christmas pantomimes - but I still need to cope with a large garden, doing daily battle with the heron who thinks my pond is his own breakfast buffet and keeping in touch with friends and family scattered all over the world.
Follow her at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/linda.obyrne.7
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wonda36/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/linobyrne
Purchase Link
Amazon - https://geni.us/Bcwz6DT
