Katy, a maidservant at Cheadle Manor, longs to escape her narrow life but events unfold slowly in her rural village. Jem Phipps has always loved Katy. His proposal of marriage rescues her from scandal but after tragedy strikes, Jem becomes a reluctant soldier on the battlefields of The First World War, leaving Katy behind, restless and alone. Lionel White, the local curate, has just returned from India bringing a dash of colour to the small village and offers Katy a window on the wider world. Only when Katy joins up as a WAAC girl does she finally break free from the stifling class-ridden hierarchies that bind her but the brutality of 20th-century global war brings home the price she has paid for her search. Through the horrors of WW1, she discovers only love brings freedom. In essence, Daffodils is a love story, whose tender heart is almost torn apart through this tumultuous time.
"A profound meditation on love and loss and the perils of war": Bookbub
"Absorbing, involving, unputdownable, honest, great characterisation".
Indie Book Bargains Featured Author Book of the day June 25th 2013 and was chosen to be in the first edition of the Fussy Librarian's selection.
COMPLETELY REVISED EDITION
For fans of historical fiction, DAFFODILS is part one of a true love trilogy, The Katherine Wheel Saga.
Find out how these characters fared after the Armistice when they entered a new, modern age in its sequel, PEACE LILY. They have to carve out new lives in a changed world, having survived the war only to find new challenges they hadn't expected when they return home.
A third book, SPEEDWELL, completes the trilogy...for now...and takes the characters into the daring arena of motor racing in the 1920s. Books Four and Five, Woodbine and Ivy, are currently in production, taking the next generation of these two families into WW2 and their own life-threatening adventures.
Winner of New Apple Literary Award for Excellent in Independent Publishing 2019 Medallist Winner E-Book