The Wild Rose
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- €8.49
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- €8.49
Publisher Description
Enjoy the ride: 600-plus pages of romance, harrowing exploits, cinematic backdrops, cliff-hangers, and plot twists - Publishers Weekly
It is 1914 and World War I looms over Europe. In London Seamus Finnegan – a famous polar explorer – considers settling down and taking up a prestigious position with the Royal Geographical Society. Unfortunately, despite many eager women around him, no one is able to soothe the pain left in his heart by Willa Alden, a childhood sweetheart and fellow traveller, who after an accident on mount Kilimanjaro, disappeared into the Himalayan wilderness, refusing to see Seamus ever again.
Seamus' family and friends doubt that he will be able to restrain his hunger for adventure and settle into the society life again, but just as he is to sign up for another mission in Antarctica he meets Jennie Wilcott, a beautiful and spirited young teacher. The passion that sparks between them is more than a mere fling and Seamus begins to believe that he could be happy in this new life with a steady job and a cosy home to come back to. But is this newly found happiness just a trick of his heart? Will his feelings for Jennie survive Willa's unexpected return to London to attend her father's funeral?
Just as the moral and emotional dilemmas caused by Willa's reappearance begin to devour Seamus' short-lived bliss, war erupts, allowing him to escape the torments of his soul in the name of fighting for his country. But in a world ploughed by war, the past keeps resurfacing in the least expected places …
The Wild Rose, first published in 2011, is the last part of the acclaimed multi-generational saga by Jennifer Donnelly that began with The Tea Rose. Set against the turmoil of World War I and filled with thrilling twists and cliff-hangers The Wild Rose is a satisfying conclusion to an unforgettable trilogy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The conclusion to Donnelly's Rose trilogy that began in 1880s England moves to London on the brink of WWI, with a one-legged (she lost the other climbing Kilimanjaro) English beauty who enchants the Dalai Lama, accompanies Lawrence in Arabia, and outwits a German spy. But for all her accomplishments, Willa Alden struggles with her feelings of love for explorer Seamus Finnegan, who saved her life by carrying her wounded off the mountain. She can't forgive him for that, in despair over what she believes is the end of her adventurous life. Seamus marries to forget Willa, but the ploy doesn't work and they meet again in London. Added to the mix is charming, dangerous, spymeister Max von Brandt, who wrecks havoc and commits murders in high society. Implacably energetic, Donnelly (The Tea Rose; The Winter Rose) treks readers through London, Africa, Asia, and Antarctica, but its Willa's Middle Eastern desert wanderings that give the novel epic pretensions. Donnelly re-casts "Lawrence of Arabia" as modern romance, placing her derring-do heroine at the center of iconic images of the era: Willa lectures the Bloomsbury group about Everest and photographs the Arab uprising before the Turks take her prisoner. Seamus, not to be outdone, crosses Antarctica with both Shackleton and Amundsen, then fights at Gallipoli. Forget logic, (dead characters don't always stay dead) suspend belief, and enjoy the ride: 600-plus pages of romance, harrowing exploits, cinematic backdrops, cliffhangers, and plot twists.
