A Quiet Tide
English
By (author): Marianne Lee
Unmarried, childless and sickly, Ellen Hutchins was considered an unsuccessful woman, dutifully bound to her familys once grand and isolated estate, Ballylickey House in County Cork.
And yet, by the time of her death in 1815, Irelands first female botanist, self-taught and determined to make her mark, had catalogued over a thousand species of seaweed and plants from her native Bantry Bay.
In Marianne Lees remarkable debut novel, Ellens rich but tormented inner life is reclaimed from the repression by gender, class and politics of her time, stealing glimpses of the happiness and autonomy she could never quite articulate. As she reaches for meaning and expression through her work, the eruption of a long-simmering family feud and the rise of Ellens own darkness her quiet tide threaten to destroy her already fragile future.
A Quiet Tide is a life examined, a heart-breaking, haunting story that at last captures the essence and humanity of a long forgotten Irishwoman.
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