Time's Tyranny
Book Two of The Wyngrave Women
TIME'S TYRANNY, the captivating sequel to TIME'S PRISONER was published in April 2025.
1934
Hidden under the bed in her father’s studio, five-year-old Emerald Heskett watches as the picture gradually disappears, obliterated by white paint. The child doesn’t understand what she’s witnessed, but gives the new painting a name: The Snowstorm.
2020
The first lockdown is over and the women of Wyngrave Hall are coming to terms with their new lives. Retired actress, Sylvia Marlowe, now blind, cannot see or even touch her granddaughter, Ros, a nurse living in isolation in a cottage in the grounds. Her partner, Bridget, begs Ros to quit before she, too, becomes a Covid statistic. Jane Summers, owner of sixteenth-century Wyngrave and author of historical whodunnits, hasn’t seen Jesper Olsen, art conservator, since he locked down with his frail and difficult mother.
At Howthwaite Castle in Cumbria, Bella Heskett and her brother, Nick care for elderly Cousin Em as they struggle to transform the roofless ruin of their family home and its abandoned gardens into a tourist attraction. When Nick asks his old friend Jesper to visit and assess some damaged paintings, he persuades Jane to go with him to Howthwaite where they encounter the enigma of The Snowstorm and Em’s curious attachment to it. But despite their passionate reunion, when Jane learns the truth about Jesper’s past, she questions their future together.
Nick gathered up the incriminating letters, replaced them in his father’s desk and locked it, though he wasn’t sure who needed to be protected from the contents. Cousin Em would never know and Bella wouldn’t care. Nick had never asked himself why his mother drank, or why his late brother took drugs, Hesketts didn’t ask questions. The family motto was “Perfer et obdura”. Persist and endure. But would Howthwaite endure...?
A Sense of Place
A sense of place is important in all my novels and it’s one of the things that readers say they particularly enjoy. I’ve written about places I know (North Uist, the Isle of Skye) and I’ve also invented places, then researched similar settings. The stately home of Beechgrave in THE MEMORY TREE was my invention, but I subsequently based the detail of the house and its estate on Tyntesfield, a National Trust property in Somerset.
Twice in my writing career I’ve visited somewhere chosen fairly randomly as a family excursion and been struck, almost upon arrival, by the notion that this is a place I will write about, must write about. I know the location will be the inspiration for the next novel. It’s a strange and powerful feeling, almost as if the building is speaking to me.
The first time this happened I was visiting Cawdor Castle near Nairn in Scotland. As we walked round the castle and read the guide book, I became increasingly convinced Cawdor would become the setting for the next novel and that the story of the divided and unhappy family who lived there would become the inspiration for a novel.
That novel was CAULDSTANE, the story of a decaying, haunted Scottish castle and its inhabitants, a family who believe they are living under a deadly curse.
The second time I had a “vision” of my writing future, I was visiting Lowther Castle in Cumbria, England. It’s a huge, Victorian Gothic roofless ruin, overgrown by climbers and self-sown plants. When he inherited, the current owner took the Castle in hand and he has turned it into a popular tourist attraction. Landscape designer Dan Pearson planned the restoration of the neglected formal gardens and the emphasis now is on improving the environment for wildlife and making Lowther Castle a welcoming venue for families. The adventure playground in the woods, The Lost Castle, is one of the largest in the UK. My grandchildren loved it!
As I walked round, the overgrown castle reminded me of Sleeping Beauty . I was excited to read of ambitious plans to revive Lowther's fortunes, while retaining its essential character as an abandoned stately home that fell into ruin.
I’d recently finished writing TIME’S PRISONER and knew I wanted to continue the story of the women who lived at Wyngrave Hall. I knew the next book had to move away from Wyngrave, but I wanted to pursue the art theme and write about more mysteries hidden in old paintings.
To my surprise, it all came together very easily. Bella, a very minor character in TIME’S PRISONER, became a member of the Heskett family who own the ruinous Howthwaite Castle in Cumbria. Her brother, Nick, is an old friend of conservator Jesper Olsen’s, and the Hesketts own two significant paintings which form the basis of the plot. (My fictional Heskett family isn’t based in any way on the family who now own Lowther Castle, but they share similar aims for their home.)
Walking round Lowther Castle and its gardens on a wet winter’s day, I felt inspired and a story began to unfold in my head. That story eventually became TIME’S TYRANNY, the sequel to TIME’S PRISONER.