Heritage of Shame by Meg Hutchinson
Anne Corby flees from Russia when her mother dies in the wild savagery of the steppes. Pregnant with an illegitimate child - the result a brutal rape - Anna returns to Darlaston with nothing but a mysterious talisman, wrapped in a black velvet cloth, in which the peace of nations resides. But a return to Darlaston holds no sanctuary. For it is home to Anne s aunt Clara, who sees the girl s bastard as a threat to her ownership of Glebe Metalworks. As war clouds gather, Clara resolves to remove the usurper by fair means or foul, and enlists her depraved son Quenton in her evil plan. The turbulent years of the First World War create a dramatic backdrop for Meg Hutchinson's new novel in which Anne, the brave heroine, struggles to save her child and to survive her heritage of shame.
Hodder's highly successful saga author knows how to pile on the misery and melodrama, this time extending beyond England with a heroine dragged across Africa and Europe by her misguided father, raped in Russia and given an unrelenting set of obstacles when she returns homeWhat might shock fans is a couple of pages of explicitly described homosexual activity between the evil aunt's depraved son and an army officer in World War I. Ultimately, evil gets its comeuppance, disaster after disaster are overcome, and unrequited love is finally returned. But if 'saga' once equated with 'bodice ripper' - and escaping a harem in Turkey also gets a mention here - Hutchinson's barrier-breaking venture into the testicular is daring, to say the least.
Meg Hutchinson left school at fifteen and didn t return to education until she was thirty-three, when she entered Teacher Training College and studied for her degree in the evenings. Telling stories and writing compositions has been part of Meg s life since a child and she now indulges this passion in a little cottage in Shropshire.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780340824849 |
| ISBN 10 | 0340824840 |
| Title | Heritage of Shame |
| Author | Meg Hutchinson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Year published | 2003-12-01 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |