The Distant Lands

The Distant Lands evokes the landscape of Gone With the Wind and excels in a strikingly modern psychological portrait of a heroine at once innocent and complex, sensitive and dangerously willfil. Elizabeth Escridge and her impoverished mother arrive in Georgia from England in 1850. They seek refuge with wealthy relatives, dividing their time between three family homes: Dimwood plantation, a mansion in Savannahand an estate in Virginia. Immersed in the South's aristocratic society, Elizabeth discovers a web of secrets, dark destinies, and private and social tragedies hidden behind the tranquil, genteel facade of Southern life. On one level, The Distant Lands is a love story dramatically chronicling Elixabeth's grand amour and the destruction it brings about; on another level, the novel pays homage to the antebellum South.