Showing results by author "Norah Lofts" in All Categories

His name was Colin Lowrie. A tall, red-haired Scot; a man at 16, whose pride was the ancient clan pride of the Lowries. And when the clans were broken - massacred in a brutal revenge at Culloden Field - Colin Lowrie was forced to take flight on a journey half-way round the world.

For the Spender family, the ancient, beautifully kept house had seemed a godsend, an incredible bargain, almost a gift from its owner - a kindly man who merely wanted someone to protect the family homestead, to make Gad’s come alive again. And it did. Soon a strong-willed, sensible woman would be overtaken by irrational feelings she could not control, all because of the unspeakable secret kept by the women who had lived at Gad’s Hall more than a century ago.…

Eleanor…young, high-spirited, supremely intelligent, heiress to the vast Duchy of Aquitaine – at a time when a woman’s value was measured in terms of wealth. Her vivid leadership inspired and dazzled those about her. And yet, born to rule, she was continually repressed and threatened by the men who overshadowed her life. This is the story of a brilliant, medieval figure – of a princess who led her own knights to the Crusades, who was bride to two kings and mother of Richard the Lionheart.

Isabella of Spain was a great woman, a great Queen. Crown of Aloes is presented as a personal chronicle. Within the framework of known fact and detail drawn from hitherto unexploited contemporary Spanish sources, a novelist’s imagination and understanding have provided motives, thoughts, and private conversations, helping to build up the fascinating character Isabella must have been. Her fortunes were varied indeed: she knew acute poverty, faced anxiety and danger with high courage, gave much, suffered much, lived to the full.

Thus the future of Caroline Matilda, youngest sister of George III, was settled – marriage to the nearly insane Prince of Denmark. Prompted by a sense of foreboding, she begged that one of her sisters should be sent in her place. But Caroline was the healthiest, the strongest of the English princesses, and as well as being exiled, princesses were meant to be brood mares…Exiled in a strange country, isolated by her inability to speak the language, Caroline forms a close bond with the King’s doctor, Johann Struensee.

In the autumn of 1817, the arrival of the Ipswich coach and its occupants – a strange, ill-assorted company – changed the lives of those who lived at the Fleece Inn forever…. Will Oakley, landlord and host, with his two daughters, beautiful Myrtle, and the repellent Harriet, waited to receive his guests. Along with the usual farmers, merchants and the “quality”, there were others who fitted into none of these categories.

Ataxerxes, king of Persia, needed a wife. This powerful warrior lord picked the one girl who would have given anything to have been passed over - a Jewish scholar, Esther, from the back streets of his capital, Shushan. To a king bored by the chattering of women wreathed in musky scents, this changeling was a breath of fresh air. But the new queen of Persia was lost in a world of protocol and soon lost her husband;s favour.

Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the brightest stars in the Elizabethan firmament. Born into relative obscurity in rural Devon, he grew up in the company of smugglers and fishermen. His lust for adventure was to take him from the bloody battlefields of Europe to the colonies of the New World and on the dazzling court of Good Queen Bess. This is the story of his relationship with the two women who dominated his life: Elizabeth, his queen, and Bess, her lady-in-waiting and his secret wife.

Hortense Beauharnais finds herself rubbing shoulders with royalty as her mother remarries to become Napoleon Bonaparte's wife. As Napoleon struggles for power on the battlefields of Europe, so Hortense charts her way through the French court - a chessboard world where the motives are jealousy and greed and the prizes are thrones of conquered countries.