#winston graham
After about two years, I’ve just turned the last page of the incredible twelve-book Poldark saga. I never expected to finish it (usually with books that go on so long I lose interest or keep meaning to buy the next instalment but never do). When I found out there were 12, I thought I’d get to about 3 and give up. For a while it looked that way too; the first three books I really had to persevere with for the first few chapters and then they became un-putdownable. After book four, though, they grabbed me by the collar and refused to let me go. I raced through the last eight books in the space of a few months.
Spanning 37 years, these books will break your heart time and time again. They’ll have you in tears. Relationships will be broken beyond repair, but others will endure any storm that crosses their path. Some of the characters make choices that make you want to scream and throw the book across the room; other times you watch their hearts break and all you want is for them to be happy. It’s a tale of love and heartbreak, of family and loyalty (and disloyalty). It’s about secrets and truth, and unconditional love. It’s a tale that transcends social barriers and shows that anything can be possible.
It is so difficult not to become attached to these characters. They all have their faults (some more than others, coughRosscough) but dammit, they’re so real that I felt like my heart was breaking right alongside Dwight and Caroline after Sarah, with Jeremy after Cuby and with Cuby and Demelza after Jeremy. I felt like I was there, rooting for Drake and Morwenna and wishing Ossie dead all the way through. I felt for Bella when she lost her voice, and god knows each and every time Demelza so much as hiccuped in the later books I held my breath for fear something bad was going to happen to her. For all the heartbreak Winston Graham put me through, I can thank him that I never had to suffer Demelza’s death, nor Ross’. There were times I’d finish one book and cross my fingers, hoping beyond belief that things would look up in the next book, only to be let down. (I’m still not over Francis )
The only thing I can do now is wait and see how all of these events are brought to life on TV, and wait to have my heart broken all over again (yay?)
