In L'Hermitage, two stories of love and death, hope and redemption, separated by more than one thousand years, come to connect and reflect on each other through the imagination of one of the main characters.
Rosalind, seventeen years old, and studying for her A Levels, has embarked on an affair with her English teacher, Matthew Farr, when dramatic circumstances force them to flee England and seek refuge in a small village, hidden away in the bottom of a deep gorge in the southern Cevennes.
Here Rosalind learns the story of a seventh-century saint - who, for equally dramatic reasons, also made the village her home.
What happens to these two women, living hundreds of years apart, in this remote French village, is revealed through their respective stories, which unfold together and establish them both as passionate, unconventional women, as well as keen storytellers. Like Russian dolls, the stories fit snugly, each complementing and reinforcing the other, and emphasising the ancient power stories have to heal both those who tell and those who listen .
L'Hermitage is the second novel in a trilogy by Sue Dooks. Her first novel, The English Girls, was published in November 2013.
