Böcker av Sue Boddington

Cambridge graduate Will Barry is an idealistic young man who runs a prosperous, hundred acre farm, inherited from his father, in the Wiltshire village of Sandy Barrow. He has a firm belief in the power of education to enrich the lives of the villagers and has built a school on his land, where he teaches the labourers' children basic literacy, with the help of his sister Lucy. He offers the villagers free use of the library he has created at the school and holds evening meetings to discuss literature, religion and politics.Sir Roger Wanley, who was a close friend of Will's father, owns most of the land on which the village stands and Will grew up playing with the squire's two eldest children, Richard and Maria. It is assumed that one day Will and Maria will marry.In the autumn of 1641 as the rift between King Charles I and his Parliament widens, Will can see faults on both sides and supports a middle way. He is caught between Squire Wanley, who is loyal to the King and his Puritan friends, who support Parliament. Both sides accuse him of having a foot in both camps and try to win him over. When war breaks out the following year, a dogmatic decision by Wanley forces Will to take the opposite side, breaking with the Wanley family and yielding to pressure from some of the villagers to lead them to join the Parliamentary army.The experience of nine months of fighting in Devon and Cornwall and a violent event back in Sandy Barrow, which includes a betrayal by someone he trusted, shatters his life and all he has worked for. Events culminate in a denouement on the downs, just before the Battle of Roundway and the necessity to withstand a tense siege in Devizes Castle. A wealth of local characters and their relationships weave a colourful tapestry set against the febrile atmosphere of a civil war.

Spring 1860 in a lonely corner of Montana, four people are seeking fulfilment in their lives and some form of healing for troubled minds. Bear Claw, the Cheyenne warrior, whose mother was the daughter of a Jewish pedlar, is searching for a way to reconcile his life as a Cheyenne with his promise to his mother to honour the traditions of her people. Ben Barnett, the youngest son of a Wiltshire squire has emigrated with his young wife Frances in the hope of finding a cure for his depression and restless spirit in the challenge of a pioneering life. Frances however, longs for a more secure, civilised life with her relatives in Boston. Lothar Klein dreams of becoming a rich man and being accepted in the upper ranks of European society and has travelled from Germany believing he will find gold in America. When the lives of these four people intersect a chain of events is set in motion that reaches a dramatic conclusion. The story is set against the background of the dangers and hardships of living in an untamed landscape and the often fraught relationship between the white settlers and the native population, but also how an individual friendship can transcend differences in race and culture. The life and traditions of the Cheyenne are portrayed in detail at a time when the Plains tribes still had the freedom to live in their own way before they were swept aside by the irresistible force of the believers in Manifest Destiny.