So many people I now realise have been involved in helping me to garner the research material I needed. Ian McIntosh must take pole position here, having read so many books on every subject from life in the times of the Raj to endless ship manifestos during the 1920s … and for taking me to India to retrace the footsteps of my grandparents as well as to meet the family I barely knew I had in Bangalore. Thanks also to Nicole Lenoir Jourdan and all at India Tourism for their brilliant support in making Bangalore, KGF and Tumkur so accessible to us for the book’s research; to the fantastic VisitBritain team in helping me to get across to Cornwall and to have four days exploring that magnificent coastline. And in Penzance, my sincere thanks to Pete Joseph, curator of the Trevithick Society, who selflessly gave his time and knowledge to me on everything from the St Just region history to where the best pasties are cooked in Penzance. In Cornwall, Carol Heathcote from the Chace-water Society was relentless in her determination to help me find my grandfather’s place of birth and baptism.
Malcolm Longstaff, thank you, for your seemingly endless historical knowledge of passenger ships, and thanks to the wonderfully calm Kristin Stammer for your timely help.
Draft readers – Pip Klimentou, Sonya Caddy, Judy Downs, thank you! And to the enthusiastic booksellers in Australia who have no objection to me writing across genres and cheerfully help readers to find me all over their stores.
My gratitude to the sprawling family who gave me the bones of this story at the outset, and finally to my own trio, Ian, Will and Jack … love and thanks for your endless patience and support that allows me to disappear for hours to write my stories.
FIELDS OF GOLD
Fiona McIntosh was born and raised in Sussex in the UK, but spent some of her early childhood years in West Africa. She left a PR career in London to travel and settled in Australia in 1980. She has written fourteen adult and five children’s novels since her midlife crisis in the year 2000, and her bestselling books sell worldwide and in various languages. She lives in Adelaide with her family but roams the world for story ideas and to research.
To find out more about Fiona’s work visit fionamcintosh.com
AVAILABLE IN NOVEMBER 2016
‘Fiona McIntosh is a prolific and superior writer in the genre, and if you enjoy popular romantic fiction, you’d be mad not to try her.’
THE AGE
Alexandra Frobisher, a modern-thinking woman with hopes of a career in England’s famous chocolate-making town of York, has received several proposals of marriage, although none of them promises that elusive extra – love.
Matthew Britten-Jones is a man of charm and strong social standing. He impresses Alex and her parents with his wit and intelligence, but would an amicable union be enough for a fulfilling life together? At the end of the war, Captain Harry Blakeney discovers a dead soldier in a trench in France. In the man’s possession is a secret love note, tucked inside a tin of chocolate that had been sent to the soldiers as a gift from the people back home.
In pursuit of the author of this mysterious message, Harry travels to Rowntree’s chocolate factory in England’s north, where his life becomes inextricably bound with Alexandra and Matthew’s. Only together will they be able to unlock secrets of the past and offer each other the greatest gift for the future.
MICHAEL JOSEPH
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2010
Text copyright © Fiona McIntosh 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
ISBN: 978-1-74-253045-1
Fields of Gold Page 53