Madeleine, a beautiful peasant girl, cannot resist the charms of Jean, a handsome champion of the upper class. She surrenders to her heart's desires, and their love sweetens into something amazing. But when her father is murdered, her dreams of marriage collapse before the impenetrable wall of class prejudice. With her grim new prospects restricted to life as a beggar or a whore, Madeleine grasps at the only escape she can: a new life in the New World. She signs a contract to emigrate to Quebec-where she'll marry a stranger and bear many children to help populate the New France colony.

Madeleine's experience quickly turns bitter as she struggles to overcome the frigid Canadian winters, the constant threat of Iroquois attack, wild animals, and the soul-eroding abuse of her husband. Isolation and crushing homesickness set in.

Worse, just as she comes to feel she cannot go on, the real nightmare begins: she discovers that the very man who murdered her father is living on her farm.

Her struggle for survival of body and soul are set against the expansive panorama of colonial Quebec, a place of awesome beauty and lethal danger. As Madeleine's extraordinary love story unfolds, real historical characters and authentic cultural details weave seamlessly into a rich tapestry of courageous pursuit of love and dreams.

Can her spirit resist defeat under extreme tribulation and deprivation of emotional support?

In India in the mid-nineteenth century, Reggie Fitzsimmons is a young, virile, smart businessman. He sees no reason why he can't be a merchant trader and act as a part-time sergeant in the military- unaware that a completely different destiny awaits him.

Feeling compelled to fulfill his military commitment and in need of extra income, Reggie joins the East India Company militia that supports the Royal British Army during the 1857 Indian Mutiny. He feels he is not only serving the Queen but saving the British Empire from a terrible tragedy. Without reservation, he becomes engaged in the Siege of Delhi, one of the most ruthless and bloody battles of the uprising.

In the midst of war, he succumbs to a forbidden love affair with Manju, a servant girl, and forsakes his wife, Mary, who hastily returns to London. But Reggie and Manju face many obstacles in their relationship. Nevi Qureshi, an unsavory Indian patriot, vows that Manju will be his, and he will do whatever it takes to make this so. Reggie, determined to stop Qureshi, must also survive the challenges and dangers of war in order for the two lovers to become one.

Marcellus Hightower, the young boy in the novel, THIS IS ADAM, returns to his hometown as a grown man in DEVIL'S ELBOW. He seeks answers, turning for help to Adam Atwell, his surrogate father. Adam, a black man in the segregated South, shares with Marcellus the haunting memory of David Ransom's murder on the mighty Ocmulgee River. The memories interweave with a quarter century of Marcellus Hightower's quest for love and redemption, through his developing character, economic calamity and the turmoil of war. With Adam's sage guidance, he finds a way to "cleanse his heart" and face life anew. "DEVIL'S ELBOW is a powerful novel indeed. The old verities-a man's troubles with women, with himself, with love and guilt-are all treated as freshly as if Cheney had discovered them." Walker Percy (1969)

On the border of the English counties of Devon and Somerset, John Ridd's father is a yeoman farmer murdered in cold blood by a member of the notorious Doone family. John is besotted with Lorna, the granddaughter of the head of the Doone clan, who is to be forced to marry the evil Carver Doone. John helps Lorna escape, but circumstances lead to the discovery that she is not a Doone after all, and the newfound heiress moves. But the Monmouth Rebellion finds John wrongly accused of treason and he has to clear his name in London, where he finds Lorna once more and where their love is rekindled. He is granted a royal pardon, and later Lorna is allowed to join him at his Exmoor farm. Just as they are married in Oare church, Carver Doone shoots Lorna at the altar and John, believing her dead, pursues and kills him. But is his love really dead?

Although Lorna Doone is perceived as a romance, it is set in the 1600s, when writings about sexual life at the court and personal diaries such as those of Pepys could be incredibly graphic, even by today's standards. They were especially scandalous in the prudish Victorian times of the author. Had Blackmore written it in the seventeenth century, or in modern times, he probably would have done so similarly to this updated version and built on the existing innuendo.

"Sensuality Level: Spicy"

On the border of the English counties of Devon and Somerset, John Ridd's father is a yeoman farmer murdered in cold blood by a member of the notorious Doone family. John is besotted with Lorna, the granddaughter of the head of the Doone clan, who is to be forced to marry the evil Carver Doone. John helps Lorna escape, but circumstances lead to the discovery that she is not a Doone after all, and the newfound heiress moves. But the Monmouth Rebellion finds John wrongly accused of treason and he has to clear his name in London, where he finds Lorna once more and where their love is rekindled. He is granted a royal pardon, and later Lorna is allowed to join him at his Exmoor farm. Just as they are married in Oare church, Carver Doone shoots Lorna at the altar and John, believing her dead, pursues and kills him. But is his love really dead?

Although Lorna Doone is perceived as a romance, it is set in the 1600s, when writings about sexual life at the court and personal diaries such as those of Pepys could be incredibly graphic, even by today's standards. They were especially scandalous in the prudish Victorian times of the author. Had Blackmore written it in the seventeenth century, or in modern times, he probably would have done so similarly to this updated version and built on the existing innuendo.

"Sensuality Level: Spicy"