Book description
Set in 19th century Dudley, this is a story of a love affair between
a lock-keeper's son and a canal-boat owner's daughter. Their marriage
should be made in heaven - but they encounter some surprising obstacles.
Algie Stokes, the only son of a lockkeeper, has ambition and ideas
enough to make his way honestly in the world. To begin, there is one
girl in his life, Harriet Meese, plain but a very good catch. Then he
meets Marigold Bingham, the exact opposite, astonishingly pretty and
adorable, but resigned to living and working in poverty with her family
on a canal boat. Yet it is a love match . . . until he meets Aurelia,
elegant, sensitive and utterly beautiful but, unhappily, the wife of
Algie's callous employer, Benjamin Sampson. There are two other women in
Algie's life: his mother, devoted wife of Will Stokes, a beauty of her
generation; and Kate, his flighty, ambitious sister. Kate loves only
herself and has her own ideas of how to make her mark, with disastrous
consequences for everybody. Always in the background is the enigmatic
Murdoch Osborne, widower, established local trader, amateur thespian,
ladies' man, and old enough to be Algie's father . . . 'It's about time
a man wrote romantic fiction - Michael Taylor does it superbly.' Edwina
Currie 'A gripping story that tests the emotions.' Michael Taylor
was born in Dudley and educated at Dudley Grammar School and the
Birmingham College of Art and Crafts. He has beeen a songwriter and
performer with the popular recording group Herbie's People, a widely
published photographer and since 1990, a successful businessman. He
lives in South Staffordshire with his wife and family.
