The Long Masquerade - Madeleine Brent

It is 1897, and a small ship sails the Caribbean, trading between the islands. This is the only home of a man and a girl who are runaways bearing false names, living constantly in fear of arrest for murder.

It was in a very different life that the girl, Casey, formerly known as Emma Delaney, married Oliver Foy and so became mistress of Diabolo Hal, one of the great houses of Jamaica. She found it a house well named, for indeed a devil dwelt there, a devil who meant to break her to his will.

Her beloved servant and retainer, Daniel Choong, put an end to that sinister marriage on the night of a great storm, and throughout the long sea-gypsy wanderings that followed, Casey has learnt the skills on which survival depends.

But this life is also to end in disaster, and Casey is brought penniless to England, there to meet again the man who is her friend’s enemy, the man who gambles, the man who possesses what voodoo believers fear as the ‘evil eye’. How loves comes to Casey, and with it new danger and agonising decisions, is told in this story of mystery, romance and high adventure.