The mirage

FictionMorland family (Fictitious characters)Fiction, fantasy, general

4.0

Open Library

About this book

1870: although Europe is beset by war and revolution, England is prosperous and calm, and it isn't political misbehaviour which threatens the Morland fortunes. Benedict, on one last adventure to Egypt, succumbs to fever abroad, and his son, George, is left to manage Morland Place. He believes himself more than equal to the challenge, but his immaturity shows when he falls for the icily beautiful Alfreda Turlingham, a woman with a shady past and an iron resolve. Against all advice, George marries her, and embarks on a spending-spree the estate cannot afford, to satisfy his new bride. Bowing to his wife's will, George allows his innocent young sister Henrietta to be rushed into a marriage to an elderly rector, thereby removing her from the newly fashionable Morland Place, but condemning her to a perverted destiny. Even with her unsophisticated sister-in-law out of the way, Alfreda is not content, and the Morland fortune continues to run like sand through her fingers.

Themes & subjects

FictionMorland family (Fictitious characters)Fiction, fantasy, general

About the author

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

13 August 1948

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles was born on 13 August 1948 in Shepherd's Bush, London, England, where was educated at Burlington School, a girls' charity school founded in 1699, and at the University of Edinburgh and University College London, where she studied English, history and philosophy. She had a variety of jobs in the commercial world, starting as a junior cashier at Woolworth's and working her way down to Pensions Officer at the BBC. She wrote her first novel while at university and in 1972 won the Young Writers' Award with The Waiting Game. The birth of the MORLAND DYNASTY series enabled Cynthia Harrod-Eagles to become a full-time writer in 1979. The series was originally intended to com…