The Possession of Delia Sutherland
An insecure young woman, Delia is devastated to learn that her unfaithful late husband has left her childhood home to his own illegitimate son, Leon, but the charming and friendly Leon brings new warmth, sensuality, and joy to her life
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Tall, striking, painfully shy, Delia Sutherland has grown up on a three-thousand-acre rural English estate called Sleet; hers is a life of privilege but also of isolation, with only her widowed father and two servants for company. She is most at ease farming and caring for the forest and wildlife of her beloved home. When she marries the handsome, wealthy, and perennially unfaithful Francis, it is not long before they begin to live apart, she at Sleet, and he at his luxurious house in the Bahamas.Francis's sudden death in a freak diving accident turns Delia's comfortable but emotionally barren life upside down. The terms of his shocking will mean that Sleet will never be the same again: through the agency of a remarkable young man, its desolate halls, its reticent servants, and Delia herself will be transformed, filled with light and cheer. Into Delia Sutherland's life come romance and loss, and the pleasures and terrors of human connection that she had sought for so long to evade.Perfectly paced and beautifully written, The Possession of Delia Sutherland is an irresistible story of love and learning, of the miracle of second chances. Narrated with insight and precision, it is Barbara Neil's most moving and powerful novel yet.
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