Ferney

James Long

From Shelf: Miss Ada Doom's Fantasy (and Fantasy-Adjacent, so don't @ me) Greats and Guilty Pleasures

A fabulous pastoral-romantic-suspense novel that HarperCollins are getting behind in a big way.

A fabulous pastoral-romantic-suspense novel that HarperCollins are getting behind in a big way.

A couple are seeking to move from the city to the country. The wife, Gally, is an impetuous and instinctive person compared with her older historian husband, Mike. She finds a broken down old cottage in the Wiltshire village of Penselwood and falls in love with it. She is also drawn to a gnarled old local called Ferney, which rather annoys Mike, not least because every time that Mike begins to talk about the history of the area, Ferney puts him right as if he had been there himself... which, it turns out, he had. It transpires that Ferney is condemned to be reincarnated through the ages and occasionally, he is born at the right time to be in the company of the woman he loves, who is also on that same spiral through time. It's not happening often enough, though, and last time they met, they agreed that they would both contrive to die together. Gradually, it becomes clear that Gally is the woman, and Ferney must ask her to keep her promise. Gally, though, is pregnant now, and the powerful pull of her past-love for Ferney must battle against her present love for Mike, and all her maternal instincts.

Through the earlier lives of Gally and Ferney, James Long explores the changing landscape and social history of England - from Saxon times to the present day - and weaves together a story of dreadful suspense and regenerative love. This is a rich and magical novel that will appeal to readers of bestsellers as diverse as Sarum, Midnight is a Lonely Place and The Magic Cottage.

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