Tearfully she tells the family Rob, who was practicing as a doctor in Venice, drowned in a boating accident and now she has come to England to raise their son as an Englishman.

The second visitor brings tragic news, calling herself Nobildonna Livia da Ricci, with a babe in her arms, she claims to be the widow of Rob, Alinor’s son. Having recovered his title and family fortune, and recently widowed, he is seeking the child he assumes Alinor birthed, desperately desiring an heir. The first of their visitors is James Avery aka James Summers, the man who deserted Alinor at her most vulnerable, leaving her heartbroken and pregnant. They live simply, honestly, and quietly, but unexpected visitors suddenly throw the family into turmoil. Alinor, who has has never regained full health after the near drowning she endured, supplements the family’s income with herbal preparations, while Alys’s children, twins Johnnie and Sarah, contribute what they can from their wages as apprentices. Status: Read December 2020 courtesy Simon & Schusterĭark Tides is the second book in Philippa Gregory’s historical fiction series, The Fairmile, and begins twenty one years after Tidelands ends.Īlinor Reekie and her daughter, Alys, have long left Sealsea Island behind and now reside on the banks of the Thames River, operating a small warehouse that services unlading ships. It is dangerous for a woman to be different.Published: 24th November 2020, Simon & Schuster Australia This is the time of witch mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands. Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor's ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbors. Instead, she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life.

more » n for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Alinor, a descendant of wisewomen, trapped in poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moo. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even the remote tidelands -the marshy landscape of the south coast. Midsummer's Eve, 1648, England is in the grip of a civil war between renegade king and rebellious parliament.

Fairmile philippa gregory