Windsor Selection S.
3 total works
Sadie can't cope with the fact that her father is dying: the vital man who spent his life smelling delicious scents as a perfumier's nose, who brought Sadie up alone, who gave her such a dreadful childhood. In pursuing his life, Sadie's father ignored hers, subjecting her to a succession of 'aunts', leaving her loveless and alone to fend for herself. Now she's a mother, the survivor of a marriage that she destroyed. And as she realises that her father must die, she begins to look back over the painful childhood she's tried to forget. And the arrival of one of those fleeting women from her father's past starts a train of events Sadie cannot control...
Olivia Giorgiadis has left her English roots behind to find refuge on the tiny Greek island of Halemni. She is married to a Greek man, mother to two small sons. As the turquoise of summer dissolves into the cool of autumn, so the rhythm of island life goes on unchanged. Until this year. An earthquake ravages the Turkish coast, sending a tidal wave to envelop the island. Its force devastates Halmeni, tearing apart the fabric of the small community. In the aftermath a stranger appears. Kitty, an Englishwoman, is alone and without possessions. She accepts Olivia's offer of refuge in the potter's house. But Kitty guards her past as preciously as Olivia protects her young family. The arrival of Olivia's brother threatens the fragile equilibrium. Olivia begins to feel prickles of claustrophobia. Kitty yearns for the love and security Olivia takes for granted. But that life can never be hers. Or can it? Must the past always determine the future..?
Sam McGrath has always rejected his fathers's love of mountaineering. Now, at a low point in his life, he sees the chance of escape. Fiercely attracted to a young Canadian doctor he meets in a stormbound airport, he decides on impulse to follow her as she goes to be expedition doctor for an attempt on Everest. Finch Buchanan does not respond. An independent woman with a determination to prove herself, she is in love with Al Hood, the Welsh mountaineer who will lead the expedition. They met once, five years previously, and Finch has never forgotten him. But Al is married - to the mountains as much as to the another woman. as the group of climbers set out to conquer the highest peak, their beautiful and threatening surroundings isolate them and the physical and emotional demands test each character to the utmost. At the heart of the story, enclosed by the iron ring of peaks, is the combative, passionate and tragic relationship between Finch and the two men. Two men driven by different demons, and a woman with her own history.