It was a day Kathleen Swan would never forget: 12 August 1832, the day that changed her life.
From the window-seat in her room, she looked up from her copy of The Last of the Mohicans and swept her gaze across the River Esk and Whitby’s red roofs climbing the East Cliff, to the ancient church and ruined abbey at the top. From its position high on the West Cliff, her room gave her a panoramic view from the sea and all along the river to the busy quays beyond the drawbridge. She sighed, not because of any real discontent but because, at nineteen, she felt that maybe life was passing her by.
[from The Road Beneath Me by Jessica Blair. (Published by Piatkus)]
The familiar sight of Yorkshire’s cliffs and strands of sand never failed to thrill John whenever he brought his ship close to home. They were stirring sights indeed, heralding safety from the icy wastes and cold seas where danger was ever present. The ruined abbey high on the cliff above Whitby welcomed him with its promise of peace, but today his heart was troubled; he had become aware during the last six months in the lonely Arctic that Harriet had stolen a place in his mind. She had bloomed there like an enticing flower, contesting his feelings towards her sister. Anxious to get home, where he hoped he would find a way to curb his turbulent mind, John had pressed hard in his hunt for whales and had filled his ship with blubber and whalebone.
[from Secrets of a Whitby Girl by Jessica Blair. (Published by Piatkus)]
