By taking on an orchid collection (and care of her nephew, Antony's namesake) she grows into a fuller and stronger version of herself who is no longer hampered by the past. That being said, there is more to her character than the homebody gardener she is seen as in the other books. She and Hillcrest are closely tied to one another and are the touchstone her sisters return to throughout their lives. Gwen as homebody is the perfect anchor for this series to end on. The majority of this book follows Gwen at age 38 as the world prepares for another war. We do get to go along on the walk over the Quantocks and get to know Gwen and her fears and her relationship with Antony. In a change from the other books in this series, very little page time is spent on the Purcell's early years and WWI. She lives with her husband in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. The author enjoys gardening ('very good for working out writing problems in one's mind') music, particularly opera traveling and, of course, reading. While researching the background for JULIA'S STORY, she came across a collection of family letters in the Imperial War Museum in London, which resulted in her only nonfiction book, BILLIE: THE NEVILL LETTERS 1914-16. Before starting on the Quantocks series she wrote short stories for the British Broadcasting Corporation and for magazines. Ruth Elwin Harris won writing competitions as a schoolgirl, and also dramatized a children's novel for a school production. ' When I was writing SARAH'S STORY, the first in the series, I became very indignant about the way Frances was behaving, yet when I came to write about the same incidents in FRANCES'S STORY Frances's behavior seemed to me absolutely logical and right.' 'It was strange how partisan I became,' the author says. Each book has a different sister as heroine, and the story is told from that sister's point of view. Years later, when Ruth Elwin Harris sat down to tell the story of the orphaned Purcell sisters, she remembered those letters and their different viewpoints and incorporated the idea into her writing. Friends and family wrote often, and I was amazed at how accounts of the same incidents and people were often so different.' Letter writing was the way we kept in touch. 'There was no such thing as e-mail then,' the author says, 'and the telephone was rarely used - it was expensive and calls had to be booked. His house and garden became the model for Hillcrest, the Purcell sisters' family home in the four-part series.Īnother influence came later, when Ruth Elwin Harris emigrated to Canada at the age of twenty-one. To escape the wartime bombing, she and her brother were sent to live with their grandfather in rural Somerset, England. Ruth Elwin Harris says that her historic quartet of novels, THE SISTERS OF THE QUANTOCK HILLS, had its beginnings while she was growing up during World War II.

Julia's Story by Ruth Elwin Harris