Nest of Spices - Softcover

Sidgwick, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449064558 ISBN 13: 9781449064556

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2010

Synopsis

'At the end of its five hundred year life, the Phoenix builds a nest of spices, perches on it, and sings until the sunlight sets it alight; both nest and bird burn completely away and a new young Phoenix bird arises from the ashes'. The consequences of a mother taking the secret of her new-born child's paternity to the grave, are grave indeed. Joseph Elliot, Lizzibeth Buxton and Henry Ferguson, are unlikely childhood soul-mates through a fortuitous, yet near tragic, twist of fate on Henry's father's Dorset estate in the autumn of 1843.When Lizzibeth invites one of her two friends, as she surely must, to explore the adult world of physical pleasure, she could not know that this momentous and mutual right of passage, would share the same moment in their history as her brother's crime. As Joseph begins to build his family life far away from the Dorset coast amidst the events and establishment of Scarborough as a successful Victorian seaside resort, Henry settles for a career in the army. They could not have known how both these past events would riddle the embers of their lives, as history begins to taunt them in their new situations. Joseph and his wife graciously struggle to cope with these intermittent and sometimes malevolent flickers of the emerging truth from not only their own and Henry's past, but also the Buxtons. Secrets spark from subsequent generations fueling this otherwise benign yet glimmering glow of deceit from the Elliot women. Absolution for them all, arrives in an engulfing blaze of revelation to Lizzibeth's daughter Betsy Agatha, almost seventy years after her birth. Only then, like the phoenix in the Dorset town where her life began, can she openly bequeath a bright new dawn to her family, in her own enlightened dusk.

About this title

About the Author:

This is Linda Sidgwick's first novel. She has been a practicing physiotherapist for thirty years, specialising in the field of neurological disability. Although always passionate about her profession, more recently she has augmented this career with additional responsibilities. She has taken a lead role in the Executive Committee of a local day service which champions the enablement of Ability for people with a disability. Then in 1998, she was selected as Team GB Physiotherapist for the Special Olympic World Games which has taken her to many interesting places, and given her some of her most memorable, challenging, and sometimes emotional professional experiences. More recently, since completing a Masters degree, she has become a regular guest lecturer on the local undergraduate physiotherapy course. Writing for her Master's dissertation created a yearning for the freedom to write from imagination rather than with the constraints of critiquing scientific research. Linda lives in a small market town on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors and has been married for thirty years. She indulges that her greatest achievements in life are her two children, of whom she is extremely proud, along with the welcome additions they have brought into the fold. One of Linda's favourite hobbies is to entertain her friends in a memorable and imaginative manner, where her inspired attention to detail never fails to amaze her guests. This ever present artistic flair, coupled with an idea inspired by geneology has now been channelled with much enjoyment, into creatively writing her first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1449064558
• ISBN 13: 9781449064556
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544