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by Fiona J. Mackintosh (Author)
"There had never been a time in her life when Davey hadn't been there. She thought she could remember the full moon of his face peering over the edge of her baby basket, and his hand reaching for hers across Mam's lap as each straddled a knee. He was her other half, her older twin."
Part Two of Ancestral Virgins tells the story of the large and close-knit Hallam family who live and work as waggoners on Lady Celia Mapperley's country estate, Mummersford, in Nottingham. Although the youngest of six siblings, May Hallam grows up having to protect her "mongoloid'' brother Davey from bullying and the casual cruelty of strangers. On an eventful visit to her sister Lily, in service in Sussex, young May is charmed by her encounters with Lily's employer, Mr. Walter Birmingham, and her eyes are opened to a world far beyond her village. Her fierce loyalty to Davey never wavers, but as World War I begins to take a bitter toll on her family, May starts to realise how much more she's going to have to carry on her young shoulders in the future.
Ancestral Virgins will appeal to fans of Sarah Waters and Kate Atkinson and to anyone enthralled by period dramas in film and television.
