The Shining Years: A classic heart-warming romance (Emilie Loring Romance)

They say a man’s home is his castle.

And for Stanley Holbrook this was quite literally true; his rural Connecticut home in the town of Waring made as a replica of a medieval castle on the Rhine, complete with turrets and narrow Gothic windows.

‘Holbrook’s Folly’ had been in the family for years and when it passed into Stanley’s hands it became a fortress with a purpose – no women allowed. No women, that is, until a prize-winning photograph of the huge stone house appears in The Friday Review. Then, in one day, life at the castle turns upside down. A letter appears from San Francisco announcing the arrival of Stanley’s crotchety hypochondriac aunt, Winifred Holbrook.

Then another from Paris describing the plight of his beautiful widowed sister-in-law Eve and her infant son. Then one from a Mrs. Davis in New York, who characterizes herself as ‘a rebellious old woman’ but an able homemaker.

And finally one with no signature at all, a saucy, intriguing note which promises: ‘We will be meeting again. I wonder if you have forgotten my name.’ With ‘Holbrook’s Folly’ filled with life once more, Stanley takes on the demanding project of managing the Waring Courier, encountering all the normal frustrations of running a paper, including local gossip and local politics.

Before long, however, Stanley finds opposition to his paper and his castle to be much stronger and much more dangerous than he had ever anticipated…

The Shining Years is one of Emilie Loring’s most suspenseful and intriguing novels, a sophisticated and unpredictable story of love and mystery — and of a beautiful castle which changes from a house to a home.