Banishment by Deryn Lake

‘Just the ticket for your holiday reading’ - The Independent Nichola Hall is acclaimed actress and an accomplished collector of men. But she also has an infamous reputation. Sensual, lithe and utterly sexy, Nichola is a hedonist without remorse - or friends. So when she wakes up from an experiment in hypnosis to find herself in the body of Arabella, beautiful step-daughter of the unappealing Sir Denzil Loxley, she is hardly equipped for life in the seventeenth century. Shocked to discover she has an attractive Parliamentarian lover and a new-born child, and is in the camp of the losing Royalists, Nichola's main objective is to get back to her own time. Yet she can hardly explain what has happened without risking being accused of witchcraft. And anyway, there is a more immediate problem to confront: the lecherous attentions of Sir Denzil. Rescued by one of the King's noblemen, the dashing Lord Joscelin Attwood, Nichola suddenly realises she is rather enjoying playing the part of Arabella. Then slowly, insidiously, she finds that the part is becoming more real than her own identity. And it dawns on her that she is no longer acting. The old heartless Nichola Hall has actually fallen in love. And she is ready to face the dangerous wiles of her step-daughter, to deny herself the delights of Prince Rupert and to brave the bloody fighting for the sake of a loved one who has brought her back across the centuries… Romantic, raunchy and intriguing, Banishment is a compelling story set against the evocative, wonderfully crafted backdrop of the Civil War. Deryn Lake started to write stories at the age of five then graduated to novels but destroyed all her early work because, she says, it was hopeless. A chance meeting with one of the Getty family took her to Sutton Place and her first serious novel was born. Deryn was married to a journalist and writer, the late L. F. Lampitt, has two grown-up children and lives in Mayfield, Sussex, with two large cats. She is also the author of Fortune’s Soldier, Sutton Place, To Sleep No More, The King’s Women and Pour The Dark Wine.