Read more
Informationen zum Autor ANYA SETON (1904–1990) was the author of many best-selling historical novels, including Katherine, Avalon, Dragonwyck, Devil Water, and Foxfire . She lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. Klappentext A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Exploring themes of love, reincarnation and good vs evil, the action starts when a 1960s guru sends a troubled American woman back over 400 years into a past life to save her marriage. Strange things are afoot after English aristocrat Richard Marsdon takes his new wife Celia, an American heiress, to his family home in Sussex. Richard acts out of character, and Celia is suffering a debilitating emotional breakdown. A friend of Celia's mother, a wise, Hindu mystic, realizes the couple is haunted by an event from their past lives, and the only way to repair the damage is to send Celia back in time. The heiress journeys back almost four hundred years to the reign of Edward VI and her former life as the servant girl Celia de Bohun-and her doomed love affair with the chaplain Stephen Marsdon. Although Celia and Stephen can't escape the horrifying consequences of their love, fate-and time-offer them another chance for redemption. Leseprobe Chapter One Celia Marsdon, young, rich and unhappy, sat huddled in a lounge chair at the far end of the new swimming pool vaguely listening to the chatter of their weekend guests. Across the pool, above the privet hedge and the rose-laden pergola, sprawled the cluttered roof line of the Sussex manor house, Medfield Place. Richard’s home. Her home, now. “Lady of the manor,” a manor which had seen centuries of these ladies. In the 1200’s some Marsdon—Ralph, was it?—had built himself a small stone keep close by the River Cuckmere. The stones he used were still incorporated in the walls of what looked to be a Tudor mansion of gables, twisted chimney pots, blackened oak half-timbering amongst peach-toned bricks. But there were later touches, too, a Georgian bay window added to the dining room, improbable fanlights cut over doorways, and—most shocking of all to the humorless young architect who had come down from London to supervise repairs—two crassly Victorian additions. Sir Thomas, the only Marsdon baronet who could be called wealthy, had prospered during Queen Victoria’s reign owing to his wife’s inheritance of collieries in County Durham. During this brief period of affluence, Sir Thomas had tacked on a large pseudo-Gothic library wing, as well as a glass garden room which the young architect had wished removed at once. Richard had been adamant. No matter the period, every brick and beam of Medfield Place was dear to him, and, indeed, the house triumphed over any architectural incongruity. It nestled placidly, as it always had, between two spurs of the South Downs—those quiet, awesome hills looming purplish-green against the East Sussex skies. Celia, who was wearing a discreetly cut turquoise bikini, took off her dark glasses, shut her eyes and tried to relax in the sunlight while fighting off a fresh attack of anxiety. Why should one be frightened? Why again, as often of late, a lump in her throat which could not be swallowed, and also a sense of suffocation? This was one of England’s rare perfect June days, fluffy clouds scudding across the blue, a faint breeze riffling the leaves, and, said Celia to herself, You have everything a woman could ask for. She had been told this a hundred times, especially by her mother, Lily. Celia opened her eyes and glanced along the pool-side towards her mother, who was rapt in conversation with one of those exotic characters she was always finding. Yet, this particular find was different. True, he was a Hindu and practiced Yoga, but he had firmly refused to allow Lily to introduce him as a guru; he was a doctor of medicine and wished no other title. He had pleasant...
