Böcker av Patricia Dolling-Mann

Sophia, a pretty country girl, has heard tales about how others live up at the big house where her mother and late friend Anna Maria used to work as maids. Sophia dreams of becoming one of those privileged people so is thrilled to become betrothed to Darius, the local doctor's handsome farmer son.The couple move into Stour View farmhouse and soon Sophia attends a poetry class in the village and all seems idyllic until tragedy strikes. Following this, Darius informs his wife that due to his new business venture with his cousin George they are to move to a large Gothic mansion on the coast. After settling in, Sophia becomes acquainted with the son of a lord who in time is to help her fulfil her ambitions in more ways than she could ever have dreamed of but where will it all end?

Sarah lives in a typical Victorian industrial town. Happy to be starting her Easter holiday from school, her joy is short-lived for, a year after her step-father disappeared without a trace, her mother is tragically killed in a road accident, leaving Sarah and her twin brothers without any means of support. Stoically she decides her only course of action is to go in search of her real father and with some reluctance places the boys in the local orphanage. Her search begins in a small Wessex village where sadly Sarah becomes caught up in the very lifestyle she has been so desperate to evade. Eventually, she meets a wealthy industrialist who becomes devotedly attached to her and helps her in her brave quest but the unexpected outcome leaves Sarah devastated. A Claim to Kin explores the multi-faceted, complex relationships which can exist between different generations of the sexes

When Tess makes the last appeal that Angel should marry her sister Liza-Lu, she could not have realised what an improvident request she was making. Although she had their best interests at heart, for she loved them both dearly, could it, in all honesty, be called a lucid, reasonable request? How could the soon to be widowed husband refuse the woman he loved her last wish? But, in spite of the illegality of the union and a protestation based on those grounds, he finally agreed. After a decent period of mourning, the young and naive Liza-Lu becomes Mrs Eliza Louisa Clare. The marriage begins with an idyllic honeymoon and soon Eliza is with the child but contrariety between the couple soon starts to emerge. She, lacking education, wishes to improve herself in order to become his social equal; he, in spite of ambitious plans for their future, wants Liza-Lu to remain an innocent peasant girl to help and support him on the farm. In the ensuing months, Liza-Lu appears to be following in her sisters faltering, sorrowful footsteps. Will her life follow a similar pattern or does she have the necessary sense and sensibility to learn from her sister's mistakes?

In Far From the Madding Crowd, which is perhaps Thomas Hardy's most popular novel, we leave Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba Everdene newly married. Now, many years on, Bathsheba's husband and three almost grown-up children have superseded the three diverse suitors of her youth. Bathsheba's caprice and wilfulness have been replaced with the trials and tribulations of family life. All three children reject the careers chosen for them by their parents to become ever more cosmopolitan in their lives and outlook. As the children mature and make fewer demands on her time, Bathsheba becomes involved with Gabriel's mission to improve the working and living conditions of agricultural labourers. She strives against prejudice to form a women's movement to uphold and promote the rights of Union members' wives. But as Industrialisation filters slowly into Hardy's Victorian rural scenes, the Oak family find Wessex life is changing forever. Is this change for the better?