Book description
It is 1660. The King is back, memories of the Civil War still rankle.
In rural Westmorland, artist lice Ibbetson has become captivated by the
rare Lady's Slipper orchid. She is determined to capture it's unique
beauty for posterity, even if it means stealing the flower from the land
of the recently converted Quaker, Richard Wheeler. Fired by his newfound
faith, the former soldier Wheeler feels bound to track down the missing
orchid. Meanwhile, others are eager to lay hands on the flower, and have
their own powerful motives. Margaret Poulter, a local medicine woman, is
seduced by the orchid's mysterious herbal powers, while Geoffrey Fisk,
Alice's patron and former comrade-in-arms of Wheeler, sees the valuable
plant as a way to repair his ailing fortunes and cure his own agonizing
illness.
Fearing that Wheeler and his friends are planning revolution, Fisk
sends his son Stephen to spy on the Quakers, only for the young man to
find his loyalties divided as he befriends the group he has been sent to
investigate. Then, when Alice Ibbetson is implicated in a brutal murder,
she is imprisoned along with the suspected anti-royalist Wheeler. As
Fisk's sanity grows ever more precarious, and Wheeler and Alice plot
their escape, a storm begins to brew, from which no party will escape
unscathed.
Vivid, gripping and intensely atmospheric, The Lady's Slipper
is a novel about beauty, faith and loyalty. It marks the emergence of an
exquisite new voice in historical fiction. Deborah Swift has worked in
theatre and at the BBC as a set and costume designer. She has a BA in
Theatre Design and an MA in Creative Writing. She lives in Windermere,
Cumbria.
