The fourth and final volume of The Herries Chronicle, which recounts the dramatic fortunes of one family from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, in a magnificent Lake District setting. Here is fiction in glorious, sweeping measure, set against wild and beautiful scenery and crowded with fairs, balls, weddings, duels, witches, abductions, murder and romance.
Vanessa opens with the triumph of Judith Paris's hundredth birthday in the 1820s and moves through tragic disillusionment to the early twentieth century. Set predominantly amidst the grandeur of the Lake District landscape, it tells the passionate and unforgettable story of Vanessa, Judith's granddaughter and her ne'er-do-well cousin Benjie, whom she had sworn in childhood never to betray.