Nora Connor

'Look at me, Nora,' he said softly; and neither of them thought it strange that he should use her Christian name. She turned and looked at him, and what he read in her eyes robbed him for the moment of speech. Then he asked, in a whisper: 'Are you glad I came? Did you expect me?' In this timeless tale of forbidden love and sacrifice, the beautiful Nora Connor captures the heart of the distinguished Duke Percival at a glittering summer ball. Their passionate connection defies the rigid social boundaries of the time, but while Nora's social-climbing mother sees a golden opportunity, the Duke's formidable family will stop at nothing to keep them apart. Driven to desperate measures, the lovers marry in secret and exchange a fateful oath - one that will echo through their lives with devastating consequences. As the brutal Boer War calls the Duke to South Africa's battlefields, Nora faces her own desperate fight at home, carrying a secret that will make her an outcast from society. With only Pierre, the Duke's most trusted servant, as her ally, she retreats into exile, each passing day bringing fresh hope and fear about her beloved's fate.

ANNIE M. P. SMITHSON (1873-1948) was the most successful of all Irish romantic novelists. Her nineteen books, including The Walk of a Queen, Her Irish Heritage, The Marriage of Nurse Harding and The Weldons of Tibradden were all bestsellers, with their wholesome mix of old-fashioned romance, spirited characters and commonsense philosophy.  ? She was born in Sandymount, Co Dublin, and reared in the strict Unionist tradition. On completion of her training as a nurse in London and Edinburgh, she returned to Dublin and was posted north as a Queen's Nurse in 1901. Here, for the first time, she experienced the divide between Irish Nationalists and Unionists, and it appalled her. She converted to Catholicism at the age of 34 and was subsequently disowned by most of her family. She immersed herself in the Republican movement - actively can­vassing for Sinn Fein in the 1918 General Election, nursing Dubliners during the influenza epidemic of that year, instructing Cumann na mBan on nursing care and tending the wounded of the Civil War in 1922. She was arrested and imprisoned, and threatened to go on hunger-strike unless released.  Forced to resign her commission in the strongly Loyalist Queen's Nurses Committee, she took up private work and tended the poor of Dublin city until she retired in 1942. During her long career, she did much to improve the lot of the nursing profession and champic,med its cause as Secretary of the Irish Nurses Union.  In later years, she devoted herself to her writing and was an active member of WAAMA, PEN and the Old Dublin Society. Her autobiography, Myself-and Others, was completed in 1944, four years before her death at the age of 75.