Mysterious, exciting, immensely rewarding, it is one of those memorable books that has to be among your of all-time favourites. I fell in love with this book when it was first published in 1997. It did moderately well but not as well as it should. I think one of the problems was that up until then James Long had written adventure spy stories, he was formerly BBC correspondent and certainly knew his stuff – but then he produced this enthralling, tangled love story. As so often happens when author’s change direction, his publishers (Penguin) were not keen, so he went to HarperCollins and, if it were today, it would have been published under a pseudonym, as his other historical novels are (Will Davenport) – but that did not happen and the book rather fell between two stools. But for those who read it, Ferney held a special magic, it haunts your memory and even fifteen years later still pulls at the heart strings. Now James has written the sequel, The Lives She Left Behind, and to refresh fans memories and entice new ones, Ferney is republished. It is such a wonderful, uplifting and unusual story of a couple settling in Somerset. As they renovate their house they discover its history, meet a previous inhabitant and unlock its secrets. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
| Primary Genre | Sagas |
| Other Genres: | |
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When Mike and Gally Martin move to a cottage in Somerset, it's to make a new start. But the relationship comes under strain when Gally forms an increasingly close attachment to an old countryman, Ferney, who seems to know everything about her. What is it that draws them together? Reluctantly at first, then with more urgency as he feels time slipping away, Ferney compels Gally to understand their connection - and to face an inexplicable truth about their shared past.
In a recent interview with The Bookseller, James Long said that the lasting appeal of the book has been to readers "testing out for themselves the idea of how long love lasts...perhaps wanting to be reassured the [love] could be durable, that it could go on and on"; and those readers who felt they had "lost connection with the bones of the earth around them, wanting to get back in touch with everything that had happened in the place that thay lived in."
Ferney features in the following genres: Sagas, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Books of the Month, Family Drama, Historical Fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, Romance / Relationship Stories, Fiction, General Fiction, Recommendations
Ferney is available in Paperback
Ferney was written by James Long and published by Simon & Schuster Ltd
Ferney has 560 pages
