Winds of change of are sweeping across the quarrymen’s hamlet of Foggintor in Dartmoor. The working class citizens of this secluded moorland village have now got the opportunity to experience life beyond the oppressive limits of their confined community – and nobody is more excited to explore the wider world that Heather ‘Ling’ Southcott. Ling is not like the other girls in Foggintor. She’s clever, inquisitive, passionate about reading and learning and determined to escape the drudgery and poverty that has condemned her parents to a lifetime of hard toil and parsimony. The arrival of the new steam train looks set to provide Ling with the chance to change her life for the better and make something of herself. But little does Ling realize that the railway will also propel her straight into the arms of the one man she will love with all of her heart, but never be able to have: Elliot Franfield.
When Elliot rescues Ling from the clutches of death, the spirited girl is overwhelmed not just by the shocking events that could have taken her life, but also by the powerful feelings which the valiant medical student unleashes within her. Well-spoken, intelligent and handsome, Elliot is nothing like the immature and ill-mannered boys Ling has grown up with. As fate conspires to push the two of them together, Ling quickly finds herself falling under Elliot’s spell. But Ling knows that a man born into an upper class family with the world at his feet would never consent to marry a quarryman’s daughter…or would he?
Elliot has fallen madly in love with Ling. He does not care about her background or her lack of fortune. He wants to spend the rest of his life as Ling’s husband and make her the happiest woman in England. But when a tragic event tears them apart, Ling and Elliot’s hopes and dreams seem dashed forever.
Will Ling and Elliot ever manage to find their way back to one another? Or are they destined for a lifetime of heartbreaking misery and bitter regret?
Tania Crosse is an outstanding writer of historical fiction who never fails to create emotional, exciting and highly compelling stories that sweep the reader back to the past and A Dream Rides By is certainly no exception! Written with flair, élan and sensitivity, A Dream Rides By is a powerfully told and wonderfully poignant tale of shattered hopes and illicit passion with a terrific heroine and a charismatic hero readers will immediately take to their hearts.
A richly woven Victorian saga about a woman’s struggle to rise above her humble beginnings and be the mistress of her own destiny, A Dream Rides By is an evocative and enthralling novel that is as impossible to put down as it is to forget.