The Kissing Gate

by Pamela Haines

When young parlormaid Sarah Donnelly saved the child of the aristocratic Ingham clan from drowning, she received the most enticing yet perilous of rewards. This lovely, unspoiled creature was elevated far beyond her station, educated to be a lady of the sort she had only admired from afar, and given in wedlock to wealthy, handsome Samuel Rawson, a gentleman who otherwise would never have noticed her.

Only later did Sarah deiscover the price she had to pay. For now her destiny and those of her sons and Kate, the beautiful foundling who came into their lives, were inextricably linked with the proud and willful Inghams, whose lusts were law, and who mocked all morality as they took what they wanted and destroyed what they would...

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

704 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Born in 1929.

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Don't like the writing style -- sometimes I'm in the mood for dense lit-fic, but even then I don't like the prose to be so disconnected & littered with ellipses & wavering between internal monologues/outside happenings. This just ain't my style.

Moving on, then.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

A long family saga, showing the less pleasant sides of village life, although there was no gratuitous violence. Some sympathetic characters, but rather complex plots. Kate, an adopted foundling from Ireland, dominates the second half of the book and eventually finds happiness after a lot of tragedy and confusion.

Not terribly inspiring but I kept reading.

[Pete Chambers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found in charity shop
Pity we can't burn books.
Gave up by chapter 4
Spent all chapter two worried what Sarah did with "Mam"...
Not worth the joke to read it...

[ANGELIA · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was going to buy this book on Amazon but opted to read it online instead, and I'm glad I did, as I would have wasted my money. Over 600 pages of nothing worthwhile, nothing worth reading and definitely nothing worth my time!

I had to skim through it, it was so BORING, not to mention ridiculous! Are we really supposed to believe a souple separated for almost 30 years, mostly because of their own stupidity, is supposed to find a HEA???

OH, COME ON!!!

Theu were only two of the (equally stupid) characters in this mess! I was going to check out a couple of this author's other books, but I'm not so sure about that now.

[Pauline Bicknell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Really enjoyable. Struggled a bit remembering who was who and how people were related as the book progressed, especially in part 2, but glad I stuck with it. A great story with unpredictable twists right through to the last few pages.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this family saga, reasonably fast paced, historical, dramatic. Kept me reading.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Excellent Writer"

[Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diary entry 1986

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

very boring did not enjoy