To My Daughter In France

by Barbara Keating (Author), Barbara Keating (Author), Stephanie Keating (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.27

  'And to my daughter in France, I bequeath the remainder of my Estate' These words, read from the will of Irish academic Richard Kirwan, come as a complete surprise to his grieving family. Solange de Valnay's perfectly ordered world is shattered when she discovers the identity of her true father for the first time. She loves the man who has always been 'Papa' and the Languedoc vineyard in which she had the happiest of childhoods; Celine, her adored mother, is dead. But the truth of Richard Kirwan's liaison with her mother cannot remain buried, and the Kirwan children and their half-sister must overcome their differences and confront the past that unites them. What emerges is an extraordinary tale of an impossible but irresistible love affair, of passion and blind heroism, of sacrifices made for love and honour and of four families whose resistance to the German forces occupying France during WWII binds them across the borders and cultures through war and peace.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $4.22

  And to my daughter in France, I bequeath the remainder of my Estate. These words, read from the will of Irish academic Richard Kirwan, come as a complete surprise to his grieving family. In France, 24-year-old Solange de Valnay's world is equally shattered: she loves the man she calls Papa and the Languedoc vineyard in which she had the happiest of childhoods; Celine, her adored mother, is dead. Just as she is about to embark on married life with her fiance Guy, all her certainties are undercut with doubt. She resolves to spurn her new-found Irish half-siblings. But once revealed, the truth of Richard Kirwan's liaison cannot be so easily buried. The grief and anger of the Kirwan children impels them to ask searching questions - of their vibrant, artist mother Helena, and of Seamus, the saintly uncle whose life in Connemara seems perplexingly loveless. And though Solange might try to run from the past, it lives on in the memory of her remarkable, surprising grandmother, Charlotte. What emerges is an extraordinary tale of an irresistible but impossible love affair, of passion and blind heroism, of sacrifices made for love and honour and of four families whose resistance to the German forces occupying France during Second World War binds them across borders and cultures and through war and peace.