Publisher's Synopsis
Perceval, Lord Elster, is a man beset with problems. After the mysterious death of his brother, he's the heir of an earldom and a large estate, which makes him the target of the scheming Lady Maude and her mother, the notorious Dowager Countess. Yet he's promised to his longtime love, sweet Anne Ashton, daughter of the local minister. And a dark secret in his past threatens to consume them all. Through everything he has to contend with his continuing tendency to be led astray -- "Elster's folly." Mrs. Henry Wood (Ellen Wood) was one of the leading novelists of the Victorian era, known for her sweeping, detailed plots full of secrets, sensation, and scandal. Her most famous work is East Lynne, a melodrama of seduction and hidden identity which was wildly popular both as a novel and as a play. An invalid from an early age, Wood was the author of nearly fifty other books, including Verner's Pride, Edina, Roland Yorke, The Shadow of Ashlydyat, and Lord Oakburn's Daughters. In addition to her career as a writer, she was editor of the magazine The Argosy. She died in 1887. Her books have never stopped selling, and she remains one of the most popular -- and sensational -- Victorian novelists.
