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A heartbreakingly moving story of loyalty and passion: second in the Durham Trilogy.
When pretty Sara Pallister's father dies leaving his farm bankrupt, she is begrudgingly taken in by her narrow-minded uncle and aunt in the mining village of Whitton Grange. Made to pay her way, Sara is hired out to Dolly Sergeant's grocer's shop where she meets funny, bashful Raymond Kirkup and his warm-hearted aunt Louie. It is through Raymond that she meets the family that is to change her life: the exotic and extrovert Italian Dimarcos who own the popular ice-cream parlour, and finds herself irresistibly drawn to leather-jacketed, motorbike-riding Joe Dimarco. But neither of their families approves the love-match and they strive to keep them apart. As the shadows of the Second World War gather and the growing hostility to the Italians erupts into violence, Sara and Joe's passionate love seems doomed.
With its vivid backdrop of a pit-town strained by the tensions of war, The Darkening Skies is a vibrant and moving story of conflicting loyalties, passions and cultures.
The Darkening Skies follows the award-nominated The Hungry Hills in the Durham Mining Trilogy.
About the author
Janet MacLeod Trotter is the author of numerous bestselling and acclaimed novels, including The Hungry Hills, which was nominated for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, The Tea Planter's Daughter, which was nominated for the Romantic Novelists' Association Novel of the Year Award, and In the Far Pashmina Mountains, which was shortlisted for the RNA Historical Romance of the Year Award. Her novels have been translated into nine different languages. She grew up in the North-East of England where her father was a history teacher. Much informed by her own experiences and fascinated by family links between Scotland and India, MacLeod Trotter travelled in India as a young woman. Find out more about the author and her novels at www.janetmacleodtrotter.com.
Summary
When pretty Sara Pallister's father dies she is taken in by a bullying uncle in Whitton Grange pit-town. Here she is irresistibly drawn to motorbike-riding Joe Dimarco, wild son of the extrovert Italians who run the ice-cream parlour. But as war comes and hostility to the Italians erupts into violence, Sara and Jo's passionate love seems doomed.
