Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
1869
A young man infiltrates the outlaw clan that murdered his father and falls desperately in love with the beautiful girl who holds his heart, and his destiny. Set on the wild, storm-swept moors of seventeenth-century England, Lorna Doone is a tale of impossible love: John Ridd, a yeoman farmer, cannot escape his need for vengeance against the Doones who slaughtered his father, yet he also cannot resist Lorna, the golden-haired daughter of the very man who ordered the killing. As their childhood fascination deepens into all-consuming passion, the moors themselves become a character, vast, treacherous, and indifferent to human hearts. R.D. Blackmore crafts a romance where every kiss carries the weight of blood feuds, where the hero must choose between his beloved and his father's memory, and where the rugged Exmoor landscape breathes life and danger into every chapter. The novel builds toward a climax of devastating beauty, testing whether love can survive where hate has taken root. This is Victorian England's most haunting love story, beloved for over a century for good reason.
