By Joy Martin
Ulick de Burgh, the 14th Earl of Clanricarde in County Galway, had a second title and, as Baron Somerhill, an automatic seat in the British House of Lords in the early 19th century. His
marriage to the Honourable Harriet Canning, daughter of the British Prime Minister, George Canning, added to his prestige, leading to his appointment as British Ambassador to Russia.
Handsome and charming, Ulick de Burgh is rumoured to have sired several illegitimate children.
ULICK’S DAUGHTER is a novel based on the story of one of them.
Eva Dillon is a woman driven by the urge to fulfil what she perceives as her destiny – to be acknowledged as ULICK’S DAUGHTER.
As she says of herself: ‘I am not like other people: my life was planned out before I was born.’
Her ambition leads her to abandon her true love and to ruthlessly claw her way up from a lowly job as a hotel maid in Dublin to the role of governess to the children of a Russian family – and a loveless marriage of convenience designed to realise her ambitions.
When she and her husband are invited to the ball at the British embassy in St Petersburg Eva believes that fate is at work. Dressed up to the nines, with a diamond bracelet on her arm, she is ready to be received and finally acknowledged as Lord Clanricarde’s daughter.
But when she presents herself as Eva de Burgh she is met with a puzzling silence. For Ulick de Burgh has been disgraced and, as Eva overhears somebody say at the ball, there’s not much merit in being his daughter…
Get your copy of Ulick’s Daughter here!
Joy Martin was born in Limerick. A former journalist, she is the author of eight novels.
Her agents are Coombs Moylett Maclean, 120 New Kings Road, Fulham, London SW6 4LZ.