Set in Dublin during World War I, Jessica Stirling's new novel is an unforgettable mixture of love and war. The marriage of Sylvie and Gowry McCulloch was not made in heaven and has gone through difficult times. Settled now in Dublin, they have a daughter, Maeve, whom they both love dearly. When Francis Hagarty explodes into their lives, however, everything changes for the worse. Fran is a journalist and gunrunner and hides a shipment of smuggled arms in the Shamrock. Gowry discovers them and, sensing danger, is furious. But Sylvie has fallen in love with Fran and is soon swept into an illicit affair. Trapped in a tangle of subversion that he has resisted all his life, Gowry is forced to flee Dublin and become caught up in the war in Europe. Eventually, the family's future hangs on heartbreaking choices any one of which may lead to tragedy for all of them.
A pseudonym used by Hugh C. Rae, initially in collaboration with Peggie Coghlan and later alone.
Hugh Crauford Rae was born on November 22, 1935 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, son of Isobel and Robert Rae. He published his first stories aged 11 in the Robin comic, winning a cricket bat the same year in a children’s writing competition. After graduating from secondary school, he worked as an assistant in the antiquarian department of John Smith's bookshop. At work, he met her future wife, Elizabeth. Published since 1963, he started to wrote suspense novels as Hugh C. Rae, but he also used the pseudonyms of Robert Crawford, R.B. Houston, Stuart Stern (with S. Ungar) and James Albany. On 1973, his novel "The Shooting Gallery" was nominee by the Edgar Award. On 1974, he wrote the first few romance novels with Peggie Coghlan, using the popular pseudonym Jessica Stirling. However, when she retired 7 years after the first book was published, he continued writing more than 30 on his own, and also as Caroline Crosby. His female pseudonyms first became widely known in 1999, when "The Wind from the Hills" was shortlisted for Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Widowed nine years ago, Hugh died on September 24, 2014 at the age of 78.