Chronicle of a tumultuous relationship

UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY<br><b>Nancy Horan</b><br><i>Hachette</i>
UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY<br><b>Nancy Horan</b><br><i>Hachette</i>
In August 1875, Fanny Osbourne and her three young children travel from America to Europe, escaping an unhappy marriage.

Fanny is a passionate, fiery and talented woman, who aims to develop her own artistic talent, and that of her young daughter. Moving from Belgium to France, one morning she meets Robert Louis Stevenson, and a different life begins.

Louis is an aspiring writer, and a loveable dyed-in-the-wool Scot. Author Nancy Horan has clearly explored many sources of knowledge of the life these two make together. She explores fictionally the depth and difficulties in their eventual marriage and family life.

Louis is consumptive, for which there is no cure at this time. Many years are spent continuously moving countries to maintain his fragile health. Fanny's care for him halts her own artistic development, and is an additional source of deep stress for her in a life of constant movement and crisis.

Writing from Fanny's and Louis' perspectives, Horan skilfully develops the story of this tumultuous relationship, Fanny's pain in a time when women's writing was ignored, and the growth of Robert Louis Stevenson's storytelling genius.

Fascinating and riveting, great happiness succeeding great sadness, this reader was drawn into their lives, by a book that is a tribute to them both.

- Margaret Bannister is a retired Dunedin psychotherapist and science teacher.

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