Item Condition: Used; Very Good
Betty Burton is a natural storyteller- a
novelist who breathes life into our forebears
and illuminates the disparate worlds of city
and village: worlds where 'easy virtue' has a
different significance and frequently
different results.
On a warm June day, when the Hampshire
hedgerows are fat and heavy, a handsome
young cleric encounters four other young
people. He will change their life, as they will
change his. Three of them are the Tylees -
Ruth, Caroline and Auryn - who have just
arrived from Australia, where their rebel
father has been exiled; returned to the land
of their ancestors, with the bright hope of
youth, they are set on the path towards
love, loss and prosperity. The fourth is Kitty
Fire-bucket', a young mother who is little
more than a child herself; alone in the
underworld of the itinerant railway navvies,
she fights for survival in the grim
shanty-towns.
For Ruth Tylee, tall, flaming-haired, a
beauty, the future means the mixed
blessings of London- smoky supper-rooms
and theatres, where her glorious voice is to
win her adulation, new friends and
sophistication unknown to her country
relations. But the blood of the Nugents, of
Jude and Jaen, of Hanna, of Lidi and Sarah
and, long ago, of Bella, remains
indomitable.
This powerful, warm story will delight Betty
Burton's many admirers, and will win her a
new audience.