Savannah Purchase

‘Madly readable’ - Sunday Telegraph Cousins who might be twins, Juliet and Josephine, are separated by the Battle of Waterloo, only to meet again, four years later, on a desolate bluff by the Savannah River. Both are orphans now, but Juliet is penniless, while Josephine has made a marriage of convenience with a rich Savannah planter. Each in her own way is desperate, and when Josephine proposes that Juliet play, once more, their childhood game of impersonation, she is driven to agree. She takes her cousin's place, deceiving even her estranged husband, while Josephine tries a mad gamble to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena. Plunged into the social whirl of Savannah, and on the great plantation of Winchelsea, Juliet finds the stakes higher than she had realised, and learns all too soon just how little Josephine has told her… Beset by strangers who may be friends, enemies, or even lovers, she is compelled to play out the dangerous masquerade... Honour and life itself are at stake, and not just her own. Entertaining her guests in the great house in Oglethorpe Square, or dancing with the President of the United States, she is aware, always, of disaster looming for them all… Jane Aiken Hodge (December 4, 1917 – June 17, 2009) was an American-born British writer. Her novels include Runaway Bride, Escapade and One Way to Venice.