Allie Cresswell is the recipient of two coveted One Stop Fiction Five Star Awards and three Readers’ Favorite Awards.
So much for my dynasty, but what about their house? Ah! I have built for them a sturdy mansion situated in a hollow of the Yorkshire moors. Jacobean in origin, it has been added to by new wings over the years, and very tall chimneys that give the house its name. The house’s peculiar situation gives it an air of privacy, even mystery, and those who reside there often feel left behind by the world and forgotten by time. In my mind’s eye I can walk through the rooms of the house, draw my hand across the upholstery of the furniture, hear the creak of the floorboards and the howl of the wind in the chimneys. The Lady in the Veil follows on from The House in the Hollow, but stands just as well alone.I’m delighted to welcome back to the blog author Allie Cresswell. Allie was here last year talking about the second book in the Talbot Saga, The House in the Hollow and The Lady in the Veil is a continuation although I’m reliably informed it can easily be read as a standalone.
Likewise, I love a family saga; The Forsytes, the Herries and the Poldarks all spring to mind. It is so interesting to see how the romances, feuds, obsessions and errors of one generation all impact subsequent branches of the family tree.
Guest Post by Allie Cresswell
She has two grown-up children, two granddaughters and two grandsons, is married to Tim and lives in Cumbria.
I foresee another two—at least—books in this series. I am annoyed with myself that I have written them in the wrong order, starting with the last, but there it is. The next instalment of the story will—I think—cover the period between the end of The Lady in the Veil and the beginning of Tall Chimneys, and centre on the Harlish family, faithful retainers of the Talbots and caretakers of Tall Chimneys. Then I will have to go back to the beginning. Having stated that the house is Jacobean I must travel back to the early 1700s, a period that is new to me, to find out who built the house, and why they chose that out-of-the-way location.
If there are two things likely to hook me in a book it is an old house and a family tree. Norah Loft’s House books were early favourites of mine. Mandalay (Rebecca), The Heights (Wuthering Heights) and Bleak House all give me a frisson. I feel I know them, stone by stone.
The final book in this series, Tall Chimneys, picks up the story at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Talbots’ money is all but gone, the family line erased apart from one woman, Evelyn, the last of the Talbots. Evelyn lives for a hundred years, and although the Talbot line is extinct, her legacy to those who follow is very much alive.
BOOK LINKS
The House in the Hollow, The Lady in the Veil and Tall Chimneys all stand alone and do not have to be read in chronological order.
Allie was born in Stockport, UK and began writing fiction as soon as she could hold a pencil. She went on to do a BA in English Literature at Birmingham University and an MA at Queen Mary College, London.
She has been a print-buyer, a pub landlady, a book-keeper, run a B & B and a group of boutique holiday cottages. Nowadays Allie writes full time having retired from teaching literature to lifelong learners.
In my Talbot Saga I have brought all my love of these things to the page. These books—three so far—centre on a family of fairly humble origins but very enterprising dispositions, which rises to wealth in the early nineteenth century. In those days, money was invariably inherited, not earned, and they struggle to find acceptance amongst the elite of Georgian society. They aspire to the unassailable respectability of the nobility but discover that the genteel manners of dukes and earls are often a thin veneer for immorality. Women, apparently revered, pampered and treated with the utmost delicacy, are too often the scapegoats for men’s degeneracy. In The House in the Hollow, a young woman is unfairly disgraced in the eyes of society and sent away.
My most recent book in this series, The Lady in the Veil, explores the consequences of this terrible miscarriage. The next generation of the Talbot family struggles to accommodate a secret whose origins they don’t really know and suffer from the on-going effects of their ancestors’ actions.
What secrets hide beneath the veil? When her mother departs for a tour of the continent, Georgina is sent from the rural backwaters to stay with her cousin, George Talbot, in London. The 1835 season is at its height, but Georgina is determined to attend neither balls nor plays, and to eschew Society. She hides her face beneath an impenetrable veil. Her extraordinary appearance only sets off gossip and speculation as to her identity. Who is the mysterious lady beneath the veil?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amazon UK | Amazon.com Publisher: Allie Cresswell Limited
Format: Ebook & Paperback (13 June 2021)
270 pages
AUTHOR LINKS
