Wintercombe (Wintercombe Series Book 1)

Product Information

When her house is taken by the soldiers, with the leadership of Lieutenant Ridgeley, she and her five children starts to suffer with the soldier's brutality and harassment.

Wintercombe by Belle Pamela - AbeBooks

Thanks for reviewing this book. It is one of my favourite books of all time. It deserves to be re-discovered by readers who have been clamoring for a long-slow burn, more accurate history, amazing writing. England's Civil War has reached Wintercombe Manor. Silence St. Barbe, raised by a remorselessly strict father, has escaped her troublesome childhood home through a marriage of convenience. Her (much older) husband has left to fight on the side of Parliament against King Charles. Silence is only twenty-eight years old, but she has been left with the responsibility of the manor estate along with several servants and her five children to care for and protect in her husband's absence. However Wintercombe is soon to be occupied by Royalist forces (and an attractive Royalist captain who more than once, will come to Silence's rescue, or to her children's). Her eventual marriage does not offer her the escape that she longs for and she craves some semblance of autonomy. Married and a teacher of a class of six-year-olds, she wrote in longhand and, while publishers made encouraging noises, no one was prepared to risk publishing a large book by an unknown author. Eventually the agent Vivienne Schuster was wonderfully enthusiastic about it and found a publisher.The story is excellent. It is everything I enjoy in historical fiction. A party of Cavaliers descend upon Puritan Wintercombe and turn it into their winter headquarters. Silence, Lady St. Barbe, works to keep her family in their home and the servants unmolested, with varying success. She is constantly scorned and humiliated, but she can't give up or give in. Meanwhile she develops a friendship and a behind the scenes supporter with one of the Cavalier officers. Meanwhile her obnoxious stepdaughter creates problems on top of problems.

Pamela Belle - Fantastic Fiction Pamela Belle - Fantastic Fiction

Silence knows the risks, she understands the impossibility of her situation and the ramifications should she plunge into a deeper relationship that has no hope of any positive outcome. Yet Silence (in her frail humanity), chooses ultimately to rebel against everything common sense and discretion would tell her, all for a brief romantic interlude. Even worse, Silence justifies her choice not just to herself alone, but to her children and her cautiously disapproving maid, all of whom (conveniently) end up supporting her. And so Silence is able to 'have her cake and eat it too', without regret or reaping any apparent consequence. Yes, this is the book of yours I read a while ago and which sent me on a pre-digital search mission for your (at that point) out of print hardcover books. Since I never did complete that quest, I’m glad to see them being reissued for me and, hopefully soon more, people to discover. One of my favorite historical novels, now sadly out of print. In 17th-century England, Silence St. Barbe, a young Puritan woman married to a much older nobleman, finds her difficult circumstances as stepmother to a brood of hostile stepchildren made immeasurably more difficult when civil war breaks out, her husband rides away to battle, and a troop of Cavalier soldiers promptly occupy the house. In all the doubt and trouble and fear and confusion of her present existence, the utter certainty of her garden was a delight and a consolation. The sun would rise, true, but could be hidden by clouds and rain. Nothing would hide that joyous celebration, that yellow trumpeting for spring, and even if by some dread mischance she were not at Wintercombe to see it, there would be other flowers, other gardens. Not all the king's soldiers, not even the king himself, could stand like Canute and deny the inexorable turning of the seasons and the renewal of the year. The intense love that Silence had for each of her children and how beautifully it was written. She truly knew her children and their characters, weaknesses and strengths and loved them as only a mother could love.Pamela Belle is married and a teacher of a class of six-year-olds, she wrote in longhand and, while publishers made encouraging noises, no one was prepared to risk publishing a large book by an unknown author. Eventually the agent Vivienne Schuster was wonderfully enthusiastic about it and found a publisher.

Wintercombe by Pamela Belle | Goodreads Wintercombe by Pamela Belle | Goodreads

Set in 1644, during the English Civil War, Wintercombe is no longer just the St. Barbe family home and estate. Occupied by enemy soldiers, Lady St. Barbe (Silence) must keep the household together and protect her people and land from the callous Cavaliers while her husband is fighting for his King, but she is still considered an outsider, someone not born and bred in Somerset, and the staff don't fully trust her. It will take everything she has to keep her children safe, and in the meantime she herself is blossoming, as if until now she had lived only in a dim light. One of my favorite books of all time! Don’t let the first chapter dissuade you... it starts slow but it will soon draw you in to the point you will NOT be able to put it down. Civil war has raged and her sombre husband has been away for two years. During this time Silence – now Mistress of Wintercombe – has enjoyed a harmonious time with her children. Yet this sheltered world is shattered when enemy Cavaliers invade, causing havoc in the town. Wintercombe, once a tranquil bastion of family virtue, is transformed into an unruly, drunken, and licentious garrison.Jayne, thank you so much for the wonderful review! It’s been great knowing that my books are being reissued digitally for not only my previous fans, but hopefully new ones as well. I know some find them a bit slow to get going, but I like to set a scene, build up characters, and let the reader get to know and care for them, before getting bogged down in matters of plot. That way, hopefully, you’ll be desperate to know what happens! Silence St. Barbe is the Puritan wife of a man twice her age who has never loved her. He treats her with condescension, much like a child who needs his firm guidance. Her three stepchildren and three children love her to varying degrees but also take her for granted. She is the calm mistress of a household of servants who still see her as a London outsider and the daughter-in-law of a mean tempered, controlling old biddy who makes the lives of her family a misery – good Lord, Dame Ursula is enough to frighten a whole regimen of demon hellraisers into quivering jelly. Silence is also a woman of hidden passions and needs which no one has ever thought to inquire about much less fulfill. The only son of the late Nathaniel St Barbe, he has spent the last several years in exile in Holland, living a dissolute and debauched life far from his well-respected family in England. During this time Silence – now Mistress of Wintercombe – has enjoyed a harmonious time with her children. I am not quite sure how Belle’s books dropped off the radar–maybe the pace and the length? She wrote historical romantic fiction of the highest caliber; thank you for bringing her works to the attention of a new generation of readers.