Far From Home - Tapa dura

The author of The Hungry Tide (winner of the Catherine Cookson prize for fiction) and other novels, has come up with a powerful new tale set in the north-east of England and America. Georgiana, accompanied by her maid Kitty, sets sail for America to start a new life. When they arrive in New York, Georgiana meets by chance a man called Allen, who has taken on the identity of her brother-in-law Edward Newmarch. Allen had been his valet and had abandoned Edward when he ran into trouble with a woman and had to lay low for a while. Edward is now escaping from a bigamous marriage and fleeing to the gold mines of California. Meanwhile Georgiana and Kitty seek their fortune with a man called Dreunel, owner of a newspaper business, who is involved in mining, and becomes her partner. It is a splendid story, vividly told, and a saga of real quality. It should sell extremely well.

When Georgiana Gregory makes the long sea journey from her native Hull to New York, she is expecting a new life of freedom and opportunity. But an encounter with a man claiming to be her brother-in-law, Edward Newmarch, entangles her in business she thought she had left behind.