Kate Rider

By: Hester Burton and Victor Ambrus

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Synopsis: It comes as a shock to Kate Rider to learn that her elder brother Adam sympathizes with the Royalist cause, for their father, a yeoman farmer, has been away from home for four years--fighting against the King. Kate assists her mother, elder sister Priscilla and Adam on High Ashfield farm and thinks gloomily of her future. Is she destined to live life alone and without reward? Unlike her younger brother Ralph, an apprentice seaman, she cannot sail away on the Essex Maid. Unlike her friend Tamsin Pascoe she might not marry--she is not pretty. Is hoeing peas and carding wool at High Ash field all that life holds for a girl like herself? Then her father returns to High Ash field--to be confronted with the disturbing news about Adam--and Kate finds herself in a difficult family situation, torn by divided loyalties. The disruptive effects of the Civil War on the lives of an ordinary family are illustrated in this absorbing novel which culminates in the Siege of Colchester in 1648.