The Cherished Wives (Bridges Over Time)

In four absorbing volumes, Valerie Anand has traced the Whitmead family from before the time of the Magna Carta through the Restoration to the early 1700s. Now, with The Cherished Wives, Anand turns to a more modern heroine in Lucy-Anne Whitmead, a late eighteenth-century bride. Lucy-Anne's parents have arranged for her to marry a distant cousin, George Whitmead, a merchant with the East India Company and a man she hardly knows. Lucy-Anne’s great aunt Henrietta offers the anxious young bride a wedding gift far different from the usual trinkets or linens: "I wish you well, my dear, and I wish you power and freedom too; more of them than I have ever had." Henrietta's words echo in Lucy-Anne's mind long after the novelty of becoming a wife and mistress of a Surrey estate has faded. It is that memory of Henrietta's faith in her—along with a more practical gift Henrietta makes in her will—that sustains Lucy-Anne through hard times as a wife, mother, and grandmother. With characteristic authenticity and passion, Anand creates a moving portrait of a woman to be cherished and a time to be remembered. The Cherished Wives follows The Faithful Lovers in her Bridges Over Time series. “Valerie Anand has been building a remarkable body of work, a series of historical novels that have recreated England’s history both accurately and vividly.” —The Anniston Star