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A Handful of Dreams
Admired since her girlhood, beautiful Irish woman Sally Desmond is accustomed to compliments, but when her guardian accepts ten thousand pounds for her hand in marriage to notorious Lord Darlington, she is horrified. Original.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 4, 1992
19 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Hazard
57 books15 followersBarbara (Booth) Hazard, a resident of Exeter, NH, died on October 25, 2019 in Boston, MA surrounded by family. Born in 1931 in Fall River, MA, the daughter of Albert L. and Lillian (Holland) Booth, she was raised and educated in New England. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1953 and was briefly employed by Ginn & Company in Boston as a Technical Editor. She married Donald T. Hazard in 1954 and next worked as a Graphic Designer/Artist for a Concord, NH advertising firm.
Originally trained as a musician, Mrs. Hazard also studied oil painting with Amy Jones and for a time had several shows in New York and Vermont. She began to write historical fiction in 1978. First published in 1981, she went on to write and publish 48 books, several of which are also in circulation abroad. She won several awards for her writing.
Mrs. Hazard wrote that there were several things in her life that she was most proud of; being Concertmaster of the MA All State Orchestra in Symphony Hall in Boston, having a successful career as an artist and as a writer, which was her greatest love besides her husband, three sons and their wives.
She loved New England and in particular, Cape Cod, which she visited every year for most of her life. Her other loves included her family, reading and music. She also wrote under the pen name of Lillian Lincoln.
Originally trained as a musician, Mrs. Hazard also studied oil painting with Amy Jones and for a time had several shows in New York and Vermont. She began to write historical fiction in 1978. First published in 1981, she went on to write and publish 48 books, several of which are also in circulation abroad. She won several awards for her writing.
Mrs. Hazard wrote that there were several things in her life that she was most proud of; being Concertmaster of the MA All State Orchestra in Symphony Hall in Boston, having a successful career as an artist and as a writer, which was her greatest love besides her husband, three sons and their wives.
She loved New England and in particular, Cape Cod, which she visited every year for most of her life. Her other loves included her family, reading and music. She also wrote under the pen name of Lillian Lincoln.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 22, 2025
In A Handful of Dreams, Barbara Hazard takes the real-life story of Irish novelist Marguerite Gardner, and weaves it into a romantic fairy tale. Below, the portrait of Marguerite Gardner, Countess Blessington, painted by Thomas Lawrence, who also makes a cameo in A Handful of Dreams in which he paints the portrait of Hazard's plucky protagonist Sally Desmond:
The biggest problem I had with this book is that I felt the author was not really sure where to take the characters. She wavered back and forth between making her main male character a fully sociopathic anti-hero (which would have been so much fun) or a conventional romantic hero (which did not work for me).
The story is sweet, the style of the author compelling, the main character admirable and the sense of the historical setting very authentic. The author herself states in her note that she wanted to give the tragic Countess Blessington the happy ending that she did not get in real life so perhaps that is why ultimately, the story rang false, for this reader.
The biggest problem I had with this book is that I felt the author was not really sure where to take the characters. She wavered back and forth between making her main male character a fully sociopathic anti-hero (which would have been so much fun) or a conventional romantic hero (which did not work for me).
The story is sweet, the style of the author compelling, the main character admirable and the sense of the historical setting very authentic. The author herself states in her note that she wanted to give the tragic Countess Blessington the happy ending that she did not get in real life so perhaps that is why ultimately, the story rang false, for this reader.
February 12, 2015
I've read a few Barbara Hazard books that I have enjoyed. This one, not so much. It was just too sad for me... It made a lot more sense when I read her note at the end about it being based off a true story.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews