Character Showcases - Briar and Julie

There are several stories entwined within 'THE CROLLALANZAS' and women of three separate eras all face their own challenges. From the nineteenth century, an artist named Briar Lockwood relates the tale of her struggles as a woman trying to set herself free from a stifling marriage. She wants to make her own decisions about her life, and be appreciated for her talent, but her "eccentricities" seem destined to land her in a mental asylum. Her husband is already making the arrangements behind her back and Briar's permission is not required to have her shut away from society forever. He is an ambitious politician and cannot have her wild ways ruining his chances with the electorate. Divorce would be a scandal. Better she be put somewhere out of sight. For her own good, as well as his.

But Briar Lockwood (Lady Calvert by marriage) comes from a long line of  'prickly' females on her mother's side. There are rumors of a murderess lurking way back in their history, as well as accusations of witchcraft.  It has even been suggested that she might have Italian blood somewhere down the line (a matter her one remaining relative, being starched crisply British herself, finds only slightly less embarrassing than the idea of a murderess in the family). Briar certainly has no intention of going quietly to her doom in an asylum, just to convenience Sir Milton Calvert. She will do whatever it takes, however scandalous, to break free of her husband's scheme and carve out a shockingly independent life.

It will take courage to leave her marriage behind and she can escape with little more than the clothes on her back, but she must be bold and take her own life in her hands. She's been stuck, too long, inside a cocoon of the safe and the predictable, trying to conform with the conventions of the day and keep everybody else content.

Perhaps, with inspirational help from the diary of a long-dead relative, she will find the strength to pursue her own happiness, no matter how daring and unconventional.

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Another heroine whose story unfolds within the pages of  'THE CROLLALANZAS' is Julie, a modern-day woman with problems to escape in her own life. Although she already knows greater freedoms than Briar, she too has found herself stuck in a rut, unhappy and searching for something more in her life.

When she enters a charity draw and wins a summer holiday stay at Threavewode, an old house on an island situated off the Surrey bank of the River Thames, she's excited at the prospect of peace and tranquility -- a few blessed weeks all by herself. She needs this break to refresh and recoup from her hospital job and the frantic pace of everyday life in the twenty-first century. On this island, nobody can get to her except by boat. It's like stepping back in time.

A further plus for Julie, is that the house she's staying in was once the temporary home of a Victorian artist she has long admired -- Briar Lockwood. Julie hopes that while she's a resident there herself, she might find out something new about the mysterious and reclusive painter. You see, she once thought she saw Briar Lockwood, in a pub beer garden in the summer of 1982, as 'Come on Eileen' played on the radio. But Briar died, according to her gravestone, more than forty years before that. Because of this impossible sighting, Julie has always felt an affinity of sorts with Briar. For years, she has researched that woman's life to find out as much as she can about it.

But at Threavewode, Julie will find much more than one woman's spirit pushing the rusty swing back and forth under the rose arbor. She will also find a pig named 'Tartufo', the pages of a very old diary, and a girl named 'Truzia', who, being inordinately fond of games and riddles, desperately wants her to play ' hide-and-seek'.

Julie's eyes are suddenly open to a new world and to realizations she's never stopped to think about before. Thanks to these women who came ahead of her and struggled to cut the path, her own life is full of potential she never properly appreciated. Hope blooms all around her and she feels reborn. She might even find a handyman. She's heard that some men can be handy, but she's still waiting for proof on that score. Here at Threavewode House anything seems possible. She's certainly not likely to be bored.

Who needs good Wifi when you've got your own, personal ghost banging on the bathroom pipes, a secret gate in a garden wall, and a flying cow called the Great Fuggity Wumpus?

At Threavewode House, Briar, Julie and Truzia will find a way to come together through the maze-like corridors of time and their imaginations. But it may be more than just a meeting. Perhaps its a reunion.

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Find out more about this multitude of dangerous and dastardly heroines in THE CROLLALANZAS -- out on April 3rd, 2020.

(Images: Reading the Letter by Thomas Benjamin Kennington 1856-1916 and A Girl Reading by Johann Georg Meyer 1848)