By the Sword
England 1651: Since her husband's death, young widow, Kate Ashley has done her best to provide for and protect her son, Tom, from the reality of an England in the grip of civil war. Their comfortable life is shattered when Tom inherits the Thornton family estate in Worcestershire. The estate is impoverished and in shambles and Kate discovers that with the estate she is inherited trouble in the form of the last of the Thorntons, the fugitive royalist, Jonathan Thornton. Jonathan has returned from exile carrying with him the vain hopes of the young King Charles II and the demons of his own dark past. In the aftermath of the Battle of Worcester, Kate finds herself caught between Jonathan and the man who has hunted him down across the years, the dour Parliamentarian, Stephen Prescott. Jonathan must must face his nemesis and learn the price he paid for his long dead love, a secret that will change his life, and Kate's forever.
The Story Behind This Book
How did I come to write By The Sword? The inspiration came from a house. When I was 11 my grandfather, who lived nearby, took me to visit Harvington Hall near Kidderminster in Worcestershire. Something about the serene, red-brick, medieval, moated manor house captured my imagination and by my teenage years I had renamed it Seven Ways and populated it with a fictional family – the Thorntons. Generations of the Thornton family had exciting adventures written in pencil in spiral bound notepads. Over the years, the notepads were put away and the Thorntons forgotten.
