Liam's Story by Ann Victoria Roberts

From a peaceful summer gathering one hot afternoon in the summer of 1913 comes a startling revelation, and a rift that may never heal. Louisa Elliott’s secrets are unwittingly exposed, damaging her daughter and driving her sons away… On leave from his ship seventy years later, sea-captain Stephen Elliott meets his distant cousin Zoe for the first time. Drawn into her search for the Elliotts’ past, he finds their subsequent affair stirring echoes of an untold family history, revealing truths and conflicts previously unsuspected. At the heart of this story is Liam Elliott. Leaving York for Australia, he later enlists with the ANZAC forces in a war which brings him back to Europe, his family – and Georgina Duncannon. In faded letters, photos and a wartime diary, are concealed the fragments of a haunting relationship between Liam and Georgina, conducted against the tragedy of Gallipoli and the Somme. Joining a ship bound for the war-torn Middle East, Stephen is faced with some disturbing parallels between past and present, just as Zoe, alone at home in London, is discovering the seductive power of that piercing, impossible affair. With her first novel Ann Victoria Roberts told the story of Louisa Elliott. Here, in her exquisitely crafted second novel, she uncovers Louisa’s legacy. Set in the ancient city of York and in Australia, against all the bitterness of the First World War, LIAM’S STORY is a passionate and triumphant exploration of the many dimensions of love.