Showing results by author "Anne Melville" in All Categories

Two families from two classes. Four siblings with four dreams. Fate versus destiny. Midge and Gordon Hardie have grown up as the children of a wine merchant. But their lot in life, to inherit The House of Hardie, is not what they have in mind. Midge wants more than her mundane life – she craves intrigue and luxury. Gordon wants nothing more than a life of adventure. Meanwhile, Lucy and Archie Yates, the grandchildren of the Marquess of Ross, have everything they could ever need. But they too yearn for different lives.

As the sun rose higher in the sky there was nothing to suggest that 23rd July 1932 was to be anything other than the most ordinary of days. But, for Grace Hardie, this one day changes everything. Grace Hardie has been happy in her family home of Greystones. Alongside her mother and brother, she lives a quiet life of sculpting. But her beloved Greystones is beginning to show signs of neglect. Unable to afford the maintenance of the sprawling estate, Grace begins to worry about who will care for her birthright when she’s gone.

Grace Hardie has grown up in a sweeping estate on the outskirts of Oxford. But her life has been a far cry from a fairytale. Ailing and asthmatic as a child, she never really found her place - not with her brothers, not with any friends - always on the outside. And when tragedy strikes twice in the same day, Grace’s world, and her place in it, is turned upside down. Ungainly and lonely at 16, could the bloom of first love be the guiding light she needs?