I
have based the novel in the Regency period, as it is a time in history that is
fascinating to so many. It is the beginning of women’s emancipation, of
exciting scientific discovery, forward thinking in the arts, and the formation
of the modern novel with Jane Austen. 
It is also a time o f romance, discovery and adventure.

 I do like my
heroes to be passionate, sensitive and yet strong of character, part of the
group of women fighting for equality. In addition, the Regency is also a period
where Mesmerism was popular; a subject that would later lead to hypnosis,
spiritualism and parapsychology; the latter subjects fascinate so may. I have
an active interest in parapsychology and base my writing around that. I have
tried to write a straight romance but the supernatural always creeps in.

I also draw on my work as a psychotherapist,
where for many years I treated people for neurosis, phobias and obsessive
behaviour. Some therapists, who studied Transpersonal Psychology, use past
lives ( reincarnation) as it is so often a symbol covering deeply buried
trauma. Once a person uncovers the past life –
true or not –
their particular neurosis or phobia usually clears. This subject has also
fascinated people from time immemorial in its classic form of reincarnation.
Again, there are overtones on past lives in Return to Rhonan.

 

A tempestuous love story of two couples
that stretches across the centuries, from the Scottish Clearances of 1810 to
the present day.

Muriall Mondell and Lord Duncan heir to
the Earl of Rhonan’s vast estates in the Scottish Highlands are lovers. Yet
their love is damned as Muriall is the penniless ward of the aging Earl; to
reveal their love would incur the Earl’s wrath, disinheritance, and the scorn
of society. They plan to start a new life on Duncan’s huge estates in Jamaica,
bequeathed to him by his grandfather. Merciless Landlords begin clearing their
vast estates ready for sheep grazing, seizing the land from the tenant farmers,
their cottages burned down over their heads, starvation and death follows.
Muriall and Duncan know they have no choice, but to remain and fight for the
lives of the victims.

In the present day, a young Canadian, Dr Jessica Marshall, owner
of a chain of hotels stretching across Canada, visits Rhonan Manor Hotel. She
meets the present Earl of Rhonan, the brooding Lord Douglas Mavebury,
recognizing him as the man in her recurring dreams.