AncestryThe past is another country and we are all its exiles. Banished forever, we look back in fascination and wonder at this mysterious land. Who were the people who populated it? Almost two hundred years ago, Abraham, an illiterate urchin, scavenges on a Suffolk beach and dreams of running away to sea Naomi, a seventeen year old seamstress, sits primly in a second class carriage on the train from Sussex to London and imagines a new life in the big city

In this engrossing biography

would do anything for a hit but cant see straight for all the acid hes dropping

in the heart of darkness

ambitious poet and protg of the kings powerful son John of Gaunt

but the privateers are driven off by the appearance of a Royal Navy ship

and at six o'clock every day

clever plotting and a Bond-esque lead character who drives the narrative forward at every turn

something she is determined to keep from him

But while everyday life continues around her

Lieutenant Kitt Killigrew infiltrates the crew of a slave ship to discover the whereabouts of the biggest slave market on the coast of West Africa

The novel features various generations over the course of 150 years in interconnecting stories

each movement a pulse of rhythm