Treachery of Time

"Anna Gilbert has combined a style that is effortless and graceful with a chilling and gripping plot. This is escapism at its best". - Cosmopolitan

Esther Aumery, only child of the decaying manor house at Lady Green, was thirteen when she came face to face with evil for the very first time.

She was woken at dawn by the sound of a cart being driven furiously along the lane and when she looked out she saw a man driving like the devil with a face so terrifying she never forgot it.

Later that morning a young girl was discovered under a hedgerow in the village. She was filthy, clad in rags, and unable to speak.

Daniel Godwain, pupil teacher at Lady Green and the boy whom Esther loved with childish devotion, tenderly wrapped the traumatised creature in a blanket and arranged for her to be taken to the workhouse.

But on the makeshift journey, in a pedlar's cart, she vanished...

It was to be the beginning of a pastoral mystery that continued through and beyond the First World War and into the 1920s.

Who was the victimised girl?

Who was Clairy? - the maid in the village who tried to seduce and steal Daniel form the grown-up Esther.

Why did the old, old mystery of the missing baby daughter of Gervase Lincoln at Barbarrow Hall keep reviving itself in village folklore?

There were unsolved secrets that threatened the hard-won tranquillity of Esther and her family, mysteries that became deeper, more evil, more eerie.

Praise for Anna Gilbert:

"Anna Gilbert writes with fastidious care. Every word counts. The manipulation of people by each other is her favourite theme and the helplessness of the good and innocent in the face of ruthless egotism. But there is always light at the end of the tunnel". -The Times

"Anna Gilbert has combined a style that is effortless and graceful with a chilling and gripping plot. This is escapism at its best". - Cosmopolitan

Anna Gilbert was born and brought up in the county of Durham. Her father was a schoolmaster and she herself was educated at the University of Durham before becoming a teacher. She now lives in Yorkshire.


Genre: General Fiction