Blackberry and Wild Rose: A gripping and emotional read

''Sumptuous and moving'' LAURA PURCELL

''A richly imagined and brilliantly twisty tale'' ANNA MAZZOLA

''A plot as finely detailed as Spitalfields silk'' STACEY HALLS

WHEN ESTHER THOREL, the wife of a Huguenot silk-weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel she thinks she is doing God''s will. Sara is not convinced being a maid is better than being a whore, but the chance to escape her grasping ''madam'' is too good to refuse.

INSIDE THE THORELS'' tall house in Spitalfields the two women forge an uneasy relationship. Sara despises her mistress''s blindness to the hypocrisy of her household, while Esther is too wrapped up in her own secrets to see what''s going on.

ESTHER IS IN LOVE with silk design, till now the province of men. When her husband laughs at her ambition, it sets in motion events that will change the fate of the whole Thorel household and pave the way for a devastating day of reckoning between Esther and Sara.