Sweet Mace: A Sussex Legend of the Iron Times
A tender pastoral romance set in a Sussex valley at the break of day, where young Gil Carr kneels among the sedges to pick bright blue scorpion grass for his Sweet Mace. "Too soon for sweet mace," he murmurs, knowing he must soon leave her behind. Around him, the dawn chorus erupts two hundred and fifty years ago, and the English countryside pulses with life, beauty, and an undercurrent of loss. But this is no simple love story. Gil must win Sweet Mace against rival suitors in a world shaped by Sussex iron and the rugged folk who mine and forge it. Sir Mark Leslie represents the gentry's claim on the land, while Jeremiah Cobbe embodies the grasping ambitions that threaten to disrupt rural life. The iron industry hums in the background, its forges and mines defining an era that Fenn renders with affectionate precision. What endures is Fenn's lyrical eye for the natural world and his understanding that love flourishes against the threat of absence. For readers who cherish pastoral fiction, Victorian historical novels, and stories where the landscape itself becomes a character, Sweet Mace offers a quiet, aching meditation on devotion and the passage of time.
