Why a Booktrail?
1809: An unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset…
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
What you need to know before your trail
One rainswept winter’s night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain’s disastrous campaign against Napoleon’s forces in Spain.
Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind. He will not – cannot – talk about the war or face the memory of what took place on the retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he lights out instead for the Hebrides, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer with secret orders are on his trail.
Travel Guide
From Portsmouth to the Hebrides
The journey of war
Portsmouth
The story starts here when the story of the sailors and soldiers, the wars which the reader navigates to work their way through the novel:
“From Portsdown Hill, the wind in their faces, they watched the fleet at anchor. Pennants, flags her and there she streaked the cream belly of a sail. The big shops were constantly visited by boats that fought their way, awkwardly but unerringly, across the swell”
The sailors come into port here and life at a noisy dockyard, arrivals from wars overseas is loud and clear – chaos however rules every sight and sound. From Portsdown Hill, the view is one of tragedy and loss.
The journey up to Somerset and then to Scotland takes places slowly and surely. There are hints of war memories from the British retreat at La Couruna with the investigation at Morales where an enquiry is taking place as to what happened. War follows him everywhere, as it follows all the men. But the journey to a new place, a new country – that of Scotland is one that will take him away from one trauma and straight into another.
Scotland
Arrival in Scotland, somewhere close to the Hebrides…
And did he really care about the names of the islands? This was the tall one, this the sleek, this the bare, this like something made entirely from light and water. They were beautiful – more so that he had prepared himself for, and it comforted him a little that he had had the sense to find them, the work’s scattered edge, that there was in him, perhaps , some trace of a wisdom that would guide his actions.”
He arrives an at unknown island where “There was no houses in view, no nearby village”And the arrival at the islands tinged with fear and expectation is fraught with emotion.People seem to be waiting for him but its those who might be following who he fears the most.”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
Destination : Portsmouth, England, Scotland, The Hebrides Author/Guide: Andrew Miller Departure Time: 1809
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
