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Summary
Author Notes
Celebrated novelist Norah Lofts perfected the art of bringing the past alive in her works of historical fiction. She remains one of England's most distinguished and best loved women of letters, selling more than a million books and captivating generations of readers.
Lofts' first novel, "I Met a Gypsy", won the American Booksellers' Award for 1935. In her long and prolific career, she wrote more than 60 books of nonfiction, biography and historical fiction, animating history and yet preserving historical accuracy. In works such as "Scent of Cloves" (1940), "Bless This House" (1954), and "Crown of Aloes" (1979), period detail and language are blended with a masterful storytelling technique. Lofts is also well known for biographical novels about great and fascinating women of history such as Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon. In addition, Lofts has written thrillers under the pseudonym Peter Curtis and novels as Juliet Astley.
Norah (Robinson) Lofts was born in Norfolk, England on August 27, 1904. She credited her history-teaching years, 1925 to 1936, for developing a sense of history which became the foundation for her writings. Married and the mother of two sons, she lived in an ancient English city, among medieval ruins, in a 250-year-old house. She died there on September 10, 1983.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lofts's final work bears the storyteller's signet that distinguished her more than 40 novels. A very special house is the centerpiece of this historical narrative that begins in 17th century England when Adam Woodley, a skilled pargeter (plasterer), has a house named in honor of his craft. His one-sided marriage to the daughter of Pargeter's owner begins the line of men and women who, through the Civil War between Royalists and Roundheads, tried to hold on to the beloved property. It is Adam's daughter Sarah who ultimately survives, enduring a loveless marriage to save her heritage when it is sequestered in the postwar spoils. In the unfolding of Sarah's struggle for the restoration of Partegers, Lofts takes the reader into a turbulent period as the effects of war, Puritanism and local brutalities tear at the fiber of doughty Anglians. January 3 (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
In this posthumous novel by the late mistress of several genres, Lofts clinches her reputation for first-rate historical-fiction writing; here, the story, which takes inhabitants of a Suffolk country house through the upheavals of the Puritan Revolt and Cromwell's reign, is full of the kind of gritty detail that makes historicals ring true, enhanced by a varied cast of unfailingly sympathetic characters (even the villains--stingy Puritans, all--have their motivations), and gracefully written, avoiding torridness and clich‚. It opens with a humble tradesman's tale--Adam Woodley, a pargeter (or master plasterer), who catches the eye of his employer's daughter, Penelope Mercer. Her father, the slightly eccentric merchant, John Mercer, has just completed his country home, which he names Pargeters, commemorating Woodley's master craftsmanship. From here, the story moves on to narration by Sarah Woodley-Mercer, daughter of Adam and Penelope, who acts as custodian to Pargeters and its surrounding farms while her elder brother John goes off to follow the Loyalist cause, leaving her to also tend to their doddering, wonderfully senile grandfather Mercer (their parents having recently died). Sarah, another admirably resilient Lofts heroine, weathers the storm; she smuggles funds to brother John before his death, nurses a Loyalist soldier, Eddy Lacey, back to health while falling in love with her patient, takes in his homeless sister, as well as John's pregnant betrothed, and finally marries a stuffy, hypocritical Calvinist, Eli Smith, to keep Pargeters during the hard times that hit Loyalist families particularly hard. Her daughter by Smith engineers his death, thus releasing the household from his penurious tyranny on the eve of the Restoration. And not long after this, Eddy Lacey (thought dead) returns. If the last 50 pages seem an unnecessary addendum, if at times the interest of the daily routine of 17th-century Suffolk farm life flags, if the Sarah-Eddy romance seems a bit tenuous, these are forgivable failings in a novel that, overall, carries a reader from cover to cover without the urge to lay it down. All in all, a commendable farewell performance by Lofts. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Pargeters is the English manor house built in the 17th century and named after the ``pargeter'' (plasterer) who designed it. This final novel by the late author is about the family who struggled to retain the house during the turbulence of the Civil War, Cromwell's rule, and the Restoration. Seventeen-year-old Sarah Woodley-Mercer assumes the responsibility for Pargeters and its people when her parents and brother die. Ultimately, her only hope is to marry a former worker who receives the estate as a war bonus. His dour Puritanism makes life wretched for everyone until his own daughter brings release for the others by poisoning him. Although rather somber, this is a vivid re-creation of a historical period, as are all of the earlier Lofts books. For most public libraries. Joan Hinkemeyer, Denver P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.