"Tomorrow the man I love is to die; horribly and in public … I am supposed to be praying that he may recant. They don’t like this burning of heretics. A heretic who recants is defeated and finished, one who burns scores a kind of victory."
The doomed love story of Josiana Greenwood and Walter Rancon sets the scene as the destiny of the great Suffolk house known as the Old Vine continues to unfold. Haunted by the stubbornness of its founder, Martin Reed, and the mystical gypsy blood of his wife, their descendants, both
innocent and guilty, are caught up in a world of witch-hunts, wars and revolution over two centuries—between the days of Christopher Columbus and the Restoration of Charles II.
'The House at Old Vine' is the second in Norah Lofts’ enduringly popular Suffolk Trilogy which began with 'The Town House' and concludes with 'The House at Sunset'.
Fans of Norah Lofts’ work particularly appreciate how her characters who live around the Suffolk town of Baildon interact with one another between different books. Here, we also learn more of the notorious Hatton family and Merravay, featured in 'Bless This House', in an enthralling series of stories of believable characters who were prepared to live, to fight, to kill and to die for what they believed.