Family Shadow

Cornish Clay #4

by Rowena Summers

Killigrew Clay has become the biggest china clayworks in Cornwall. But its fortunes are never stable, and threats to its future come from a ruthless clay boss, Harriet Pendragon, who sets her sights not only on Killigrew Clay, but on its owner, the handsome Randall Wainwright.

But she reckons without Morwen Wainwright, who has always fought for what was hers. As the matriarch of a large brood of children, Morwen must cope with this new threat, along with the sad realisation that she and Randall are no longer the passionate lovers of old.

A bereavement produces turmoil and bitterness between brothers, and threatens to split the family in two, and Morwen begins to wonder if the shadows that have dogged her since she was young will finally engulf her. 

A heartbreaking, unerring portrayal of a family in turmoil, Family Shadows is a beautiful saga of love and betrayal that will delight fans of Lyn Andrews, Dilly Court and Katie Flynn

328 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1995

About the author

Jean Innes was born on 8 February 1932 in London, England, but she have lived in the West Country almost all her life. She married with Geoff Saunders, her childhood sweetheart, and they have three grown up children. She lived in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, where she wrote full time. She passed away on 3 August 2011, after contracting an illness, after being rushed to Weston General Hospital.

Jean began her career as a magazine writer and had published around 600 short stories. She start to published gothic romance novels under her married name Jean Saunders and her maiden name Jean Innes in the 1970s. In 1980s, she created, to wrote historical romances, two pseudonyms, her most popular, Rowena Summers and Sally Blake. In 1991 her novel, "The Bannister Girls," was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of Year award. In 2004, she began to used the penname Rachel Moore.

She was an active member and enthusiast of Swanwick, the Writers' Summer School, which takes place in Derbyshire, England, every August, she was a committee member several times, and also Vice-Chairman. She was elected the seventeenth Chairman (1993-1995) of the Romantic Novelists' Association. As a member of the Romance Writers of America she had given talks at conferences in various venues of the USA. She was a member of the Crime Writers' Association. She also was a member and past committee member of the West Country Writers' Association.

Reviews

[Angela Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morwen has a divided past in the china clay works, once a worker and now an owner. Her family with young and grown children as well as the offspring of relatives is in her second marriage. Fortune flexes and workers fight for better pay. Ruthless, Harriet Pendragon, plagues the business with threats of takeover. The death of Morwen’s father leads this saga in a stage where the family are threatened to be torn apart.

[Sammi Heslop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, sadness, love and happiness all in one book.