The Peacock's Feather (CH) (Charnwood Large Print Library Series) - Hardcover

The beautiful but dilapidated country house Ramillies is the focal point of this award-winner (England's 1988 Romantic Novel of the Year) set in the early 1800s. To Ramillies come Jardine Savage, privateer with a past who has just returned from India; his companion, an irrascible, lovelorn doctor, Alexander French; and, in their precarious care, a dark-skinned infant girl of mysterious origins. Ousted from Ramillies before their arrival is the rightful owner, Lizzie Rayner, a feisty and brilliant artist, who cares deeply for the rundown homestead--which local superstition judges accursed. Around these characters swirls a host of Suffolk countryfolk busy with gossip (about Jary and the baby), intrigue (about the ownership of Ramillies), even accusations of murder (leveled in court at Jary). Love for the old place inevitably unites Jary and Lizzy, and the Trollopian scenario comes to a satisfying close. Woodhouse is the author of A Season of Mists and The Indian Widow.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With deft economical strokes Woodhouse paints a vivid picture of early 19th-century village life in deepest rural Suffolk. A chance encounter on a coach brings adventurer Jardine Savage and retired army surgeon Alexander French (also in A Season of Mists, LJ 8/84) together as they struggle to save an outcast fellow passenger who dies in childbirth, leaving an infant daughter. Jardine adopts the child, taking it and the doctor home to his dilapidated estate, purchased sight unseen. Though there is plenty of action--a duel, brutal eviction of tenants, a murder--it is the characters--irascible, independent, fighting against convention to affirm themselves and their values--and the richly rendered folkways and byways of the countryside that dominate the book. Recommended.
- Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.