Floodtide

In Stella Vredenburg, a young woman from the Transvaal, Goodwin has created a heroine distinct from the mold customary to the genre. At the beginning of this well-crafted romance, Stella is a 16-year-old farm girl. During the ravages of the Boer War, she consorts with the enemy by rescuing a wounded English officer, Rupert Flood. Their liaison causes Stella's banishment from her strict Dutch family; her pregnancy prompts a rushed, ill-fated marriage to Rupert. In England, where the Floods are proud, titled landowners, Stella is not accepted by the matriarch, even when she gives birth to a son. When Rupert dies, another Flood becomes Stella's lover, but never her husband. Eventually, Stella forges economic and sexual independence through a career on the music hall stage and meets a man her equal in equanimity. Goodman (Sisters; Cousins creates a credible, sweeping saga of a woman, a survivor through a strange chain of events. (February 17)