The Stranger from the Sea (The Poldark Saga #8) by Winston Graham
Genre: Historical Fiction
Read: 7th December 2017
Purchase: Amazon
★★★ 3 stars
This book was somewhat removed from the previous 7 in the Poldark series, in that it picks up 11 years later in 1810. Jeremy and Clowance have grown; Ross and Demelza have another daughter who we don't see a whole lot of; Drake and Morwenna who we see nothing of, as well as Verity and Andrew; Geoffrey Charles is fighting in Portugal or France or somewhere and we only see him in the first few chapters with Ross; Captain Henshawe has moved on...somewhere in Wales I think; Dwight and Caroline have two daughters (whom we also don't see much of); and several characters from previous novels have died since. We enter the mind and life of George Warleggan and his quest for a wife, we see a little of Valentine and nothing of little Ursula, who would now be about 11 years old.
The children of the previous novels have grown and begin their own stories. Jeremy and Ben Carter (Jinny Carter's - now Scobie - young son of Jim Carter who died in Launceston years before) discover a floating raft with two men on it - one dead, the other barely alive. Enter Stephen Carrington, who takes a shine to Clowance, whom Ben Carter is also enamoured with.
I was sadly disappointed, after all the drama preceeding their nuptials, to find a complete absence of Drake and Morwenna who were completely adorable. Apparently they now have a daughter whom we know of simply by passing mention. They apparently now live in Looe running Ross' boat building business - a business we knew nothing of in the previous books so it must have occurred somewhere between the end of the last and the beginning of this one. And Sam, who we saw nothing of either, has replaced Drake as the local blacksmith at Pally's Shop where Drake used to live and work. Sam also fell in love and married Drake's former betrothed, Rosina Hoblyn, after pining for Emma Tregirls. But we see none of this - as it merely "mentioned" by way of conversation or in a catch-up narrative. We don't even see the beloved rouge Jud Paynter - he is just mentioned in passing.
This book is far removed from the previous ones in where it moves on to primarily the Poldark children - Jeremy and Clowance, as well as the newcomer Stephen Carrington. Ross and Demelza even appear to be background. And we see none of the old miners, which is strange considering the talk and work of re-opening Wheal Leisure! Even Dwight doesn't appear, except maybe at the beginning when Ross was in London with parliament and talks of the war and all that political nonsense. If he appears at all, it was only then and never since. It is very different, and I enjoyed some of it, but not all of it. I think this book suffers in the fact there was so large a gap between books, that we didn't get to see everyone grow and move on etc. Just one day they are there, the next they are gone. I will begin the next one shortly and hope to see some of our old favourites again. I really missed them this time round and not sure I like or trust that Stephen Carrington. How does the saying go...?
"Save a stranger from the sea
And he'll become your enemy..."
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