WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Castle of Twilight cover

The Castle of Twilight

Chapter 3: FOREWORD
By Margaret Horton Potter
Open in WeRead

About This Book

The narrative centers on the chatelaine Eleanore, who confronts deep maternal grief when her daughter Laure embraces the religious life while her son Gerault prepares to depart for Rennes. Set in a lonely coastal castle, the story unfolds through quiet domestic scenes, inner meditation, and episodes of passion, loss, and return. Through shifting perspectives and a cast of linked figures, including wanderers and lovers, the work examines duty, memory, and yearning, using atmospheric description, tides, and storms to mirror the characters’ emotional tides and the slow unspooling of family bonds.

FOREWORD

Wistfully I deliver up to you my simple story, knowing that the first suggestion of “historical novel” will bring before you an image of dreary woodenness and unceasing carnage. Yet if you will have the graciousness but to unlock my castle door you will find within only two or three quiet folk who will distress you with no battles nor strange oaths. Even in the days of rival Princes and never-ending wars there dwelt still a few who took no part in the moil of life, but lived with gentle pleasures and unvoiced sorrows, somewhat as you and I; wherefore, I pray you, cross the moat. The drawbridge is down for you, and will not be raised, if, after introduction to the Chatelaine, you desire speedily to retreat.

M. H. P.