Morland Dynasty 30 The Measure of Days

1916. England is at war, and the Morland family is in the thick of it, with two men already in France and three more soon to go.Tragedy strikes Morland Place when Jessie's husband Ned is reported missing on the Western Front. His father launches a desperate bid to find him, but the rest of the family fears the worst. In London, Violet is cocooned from the war by her love affair with the brilliant artist, Octavian Laidislaw. But when his portrait of her goes on show, scandal erupts. The lovers are forced to flee London; but there is more to fear than loss of position, for her irate husband, Lord Holkam, will stop at nothing to separate them...Oliver, now in the RAMC, is disappointed when he is posted in London instead of being sent to France. But Jessie, mourning Ned and frustrated by her work as an auxiliary nurse, comes to London to nurse as a VAD in a military hospital, and soon the two old friends are reunited. Venetia is glad to keep her son at home. Her war work is exhausting, and with Violet in exile, her son Thomas in Russia, and her husband too often absent abroad as Lord Kitchener's aide, she needs his support as never before.The Golden Wind paints a portrait of a family, and a nation, at war, at a pivotal point in history, as the quiet spring and summer of 1916 end in the violent eruption of pitched battle on the River Somme. With the introduction of conscription, no-one is left unaffected. Now every man must hold himself in readiness; and every woman knows that when she says goodbye, it might be for the last time.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is the author of the contemporary Bill Slider Mystery series as well as the Morland Dynasty novels.