Long Lost Journey - Hardcover

Potter, Jennifer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0916515834 ISBN 13: 9780916515836

Publisher: Mercury House, 1990

Synopsis

Elinor Grace, an archaeologist, leaves Aden in 1910 on a secret expedition, but finds her plans upset by the threat of an Arab revolt and her deteriorating relationship with her traveling companion, James Fergusson, a naturalist

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

As in her first novel, The Taking of Agnes , freelance journalist Potter here creates maverick, memorable characters: heroine Elinor Grace, a dedicated scholar and archeologist, and her lover James Fergusson. Their overwhelming physical attraction makes up for differences in ambition, family background and morality in Potter's fascinating psychological account of Elinor's professional and personal ideals and Fergusson's destruction of them. The year is 1910, and Elinor sets out secretly from Aden on her way to Mareb in Yemen, determined to disprove the biblical connection between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. Dark, mysterious Scotsman Fergusson volunteers to be her traveling companion, and Elinor is soon obsessed with him--he suits her romantic sensibility perfectly, yet has no scruples. Despite Fergusson's illegal gun-smuggling and his physical and emotional cruelty, Elinor moves in with him at Mareb. Amid a war and other disasters, Fergusson leaves her to the vagaries of prison and malaria, seizing journals, sketches and all credit for her archeological discoveries. Elinor loses hope only when she realizes that Fergusson framed her for his own gun-running. Based on fact, this first-person novel convincingly evokes a time, a place and a torturous romance.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

It is 1910 and Elinor Grace, a young Edwardian archaeologist, has come to the Middle East hoping to excavate the temple at Mareb. She takes as a traveling companion James Fergussen, a Scottish adventurer and gunrunner posing as a naturalist, and journeys part of the way with him. Because of fighting between the Arabs and Turks, their trip is fraught with danger. Through her journal entries, we learn about her experiences at Mareb and also her discovery of her own sexuality when Fergussen joins her there. He later betrays her, and she is rescued from imprisonment and madness by a friend in the British Civil Service. The early description of the preparations for the trip and its beginning makes compelling reading; Grace's sexual awakening at Mareb is powerful though it smacks a bit of Forster or Lawrence.
- Janet Boyarin Blundell, M.L.S., Brookdale Community Coll., Lincroft, N.J.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mercury House
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0916515834
• ISBN 13: 9780916515836
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1