This novel starts well with its build-up to events on Midsummer’s Eve, and the conflict that takes place on the dreaded night itself, plus the aftermath, but once the setting changes from Cornwall to Australia, I grew bored fast.

The Australian section often reads like non-fiction travel writing, which is fine if you don’t mind such digressions, but I’d rather stick to the story. Some scenes are good, though, but at one point the author ruins the suspense with this line:

> I had no idea when I awoke that morning that this was to be one of the strangest and most tragic days of my life. Joe Cresswell said: “I’ve something to tell you Joe Cresswell turned to me “I think,” said Joe CresswellJoe Cresswell asked me how long I was staying. Peterkin and Joe Cresswell exchanged smiles. I liked Joe Cresswell; he was very relaxed.“Oh dear,” said my mother.
“Matthew can take care of her,” put in Jacco. “After all, that’s his job now.”
“She’s nervous still. She clings in spite of everything.”
My mother said: “I think Annora had better stay here ( )

Read during Winter 2003/2004

The family saga continues and, again, that very odd theme of a much older man falling for a young girl and waiting for her to grow up. Here the child of Jake the Gypsy (actually a nobleman and land owner) and Jessica, Annora, is the heroine. She grows up idolizing the son of a neighboring family; Rolf, some 8 or 9 years her senior. On Midsummer's Eve she sees the local village drive a woman they believe to be a witch to her death and thinks Rolf is to blame. Many misunderstandings and unspoken truths and deceptions follow, including an oddly improbable but useful plot device trip to Australia but a happy ending finally arrives. The politics and history of the outside world play little role in the story (it is early in the reign of Queen Victoria) but the introduction of the Cresswell family seems signifigant.