Book Synopsis: THE HOUSE AT OLD VINE is a historical novel in the grand tradition, a richly colorful pageant of life in sixteenth-century England. Set in a time of great religious, political, and economic ferment, it tells of the descendents of Martin Reed, a serf who rose from bondage to become a man of property, and of their changing fortunes in violently changing times.
Reed's descendents inherited his ambition and tenacity, and the House at Old Vine serves as the background for their struggles to maintain hard-won positions. Some of their motives are noble, others ignoble, but the guiding principle is always to hold onto the house at all costs. The house suffers many rises and falls of condition as the tenants treat it with respect or disrespect -- yet the house remains, and what it stands for as well.
Readers who thrilled to the high drama and deft characterizations of Norah Lofts' Bless This House and The Town House know her extraordinary gift of bringing to vibrant life the whole pageant of life and death in Old England; this magnificent novel should win her many new readers as well.
