The life of an impoverished schoolteacher is not one Evangeline Blake would have chosen for
herself. Torn from her home and her beloved sister and sent to work in
the gritty factory town of Smeatley, Evangeline must prove herself to
her grandfather, a man who values self-reliance above all else, before
he will grant her access to her inheritance. Raised to be a lady of
refinement, she hasn’t any of the skills necessary to manage on her own
nor does she have the first idea how to be a
school teacher. But failure means never being with her sister again.
Alone and overwhelmed, she turns to the one
person in town who seems to know how she feels—Dermot McCormick, an
Irish brick mason who is as far from home and as out of place as she is.
Despite the difference in their classes and backgrounds,
Evangeline and Dermot’s tentative friendship deepens and grows. Her
determination and compassion slowly earn her the faith and confidence of
the skeptical residents of Smeatley, who become like the family she has
lost.
But when a secret from her past comes to light,
Evangeline faces an impossible choice: seize the opportunity to reclaim
her former life and rejoin her sister or fight for the new life she has struggled to build for herself—a life that
includes Dermot.
Ashes on the Moor is the inspiring love
story of one Victorian woman’s courage to fight against all odds, and
the man whose quiet strength gives her the confidence to keep trying.
Review
''Blends a bucolic historical setting with deep characters for a rewarding tale. Sarah Eden provides solid historical details to highlight Evangeline's struggles with understanding Yorkshire accents, living in poverty, and being socially isolated because she has to keep her family connections secret. Eden ably captures the changing of an era, the horrors of factory work, and the displacements of being Irish in England, a lady among the working classes, and a Southern Englishwoman in the North. Will appeal to readers seeking a chaste romance that makes gentle challenges to conventions of feminine propriety.'' --Publishers WeeklyAbout the author
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