Court of the Hazels

by Charles Morgan

The story opens on Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897. Morgan, a local farmer has been hired to take the wood to the top of the Sugar Loaf, a local hill in the Usk Valley, to light a bonfire in celebration. Morgan is late and the local squire, Colonel Sanderman, demands that the wood be carried up the hill without him. The locals warn him that only Morgan can get the wood up the hill as the hill really belongs to him. The advice is ignored. Morgan is in fact with his pre-teenage children, George and Sian, picking herbs for his horses to eat. As they ride towards the mountain they turn the horses in a deserted farm called Cwrt-y-gollen (Court of the Hazels). Morgan explains that the farm was once owned by their family and how their ancestors the princes of Gwent Uwch-Coed were murdered here in the 12th Century. So begins a story that will destroy all their lives and the lives of those they love.

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2009