Heronbrook

by Anne Rundle

When Jo, daughter of Mine manager Rick Heron, finds herself in danger on the Northumbrian cliffs, she is rescued by two widely differing men. Chris Ashton is a rebellious survivor from the Peterloo massacre; Dr Gil Talbot comes from a respectable middle-class background. But the three have one thing in common radicalism. Jo’s cousin Came visits Heronbrook from Amberwood, his Hampstead home. The house was a gift from Charles II to a disreputable ancestress. Came seems strange and unhappy. Jo thinks his attitude stems from the inexplicable disappearance of the girl with whom he is in love. But he reacts oddly at the mention of his mother, Savannah, the widowed Lady Amberwood, and to his brother, Bran.

Jo’s sympathies are with the plight of the miners at Jingling Cat, owned by her uncle Jared. Her attempts to alleviate their misery leads her into further danger and to the edge of despair.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Anne Lamb Rundle
aka Anne Rundle, Joanne Marshall, Marianne Lamont, Alexandra Manners, Jeanne Sanders, Georgianna Bell

Anne Lamb was born on 1920 in Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumberland, England, UK, daughter of Annie Sanderson and George Manners Lamb, a soldier. She was educated at Army Schools, and attended Berwick High School for Girls. She worked as civil servant on Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1942 to 1950. On 1th October 1949, she married Edwin Charles Rundle, and had one daughter, Anne, and two sons, James and Iain.

When she published her first novel in 1967, she won the Netta Muskett Award for new writers. She won twice the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association for her novels Cat on a Broomstick (1970) and Flower of Silence (1971). In 1974, she was named Daughter of Mark Twain. On 1937, she married Richard Maddocks, who died in 1970. Anne Rundle died on 1989.

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Misery porn: pretty much everyone is awful, incestuous, rapey, lying, cheating, immoral, and soulless. Brother kills brother, mother pimps out her daughter and kills her, innocent man gets killed while criminal gets away scot-free. The main female character had the most going for her and then she gets raped, pregnant by her rapist, and pressured into a marriage of convenience, has a miscarriage and ends up barren after her hemorraging. Her husband has sex with the maid in their own house, and the maid laughs at her employer when she finds out. Did I mention the maid also had an affair with heroines dad, heroines brother, and was married to the heroine's one true love (who was killed by heroines father)?

The maid finally leaves the house to try her luck in London, giving the heroine the condescending advice to fight for her man. Which the idjeet heroine does, apologizing to her husband for driving him into the maid's arms and humbly asking for another chance. I don't know how many axes the author had to grind when she wrote this horror but I sure didn't enjoy being inside her mind!

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Character driven romance takes place around a mining town. The mine workers - men, women and children working long hours for bare survival in dangerous condition.