The Lightning Tree // The Weeping Ash — Joan Aiken

Two extraordinary tales, and many fates, intertwine in this magnificent novel of India and England in the last years of the eighteenth century.

Sixteen-year-old Fanny Paget, newly married to the odious Captain Paget, had come to live with him and his grown daughters at the Hermitage, a house lent to them by distant relatives. There Fanny will suffer at her husband's hands almost inconceivable humiliation and torment. But trained in duty by a clergyman father, she endeavors to make the best of her loveless marriage and is befriended by Lord Egremont, the local Grandee, and his charming mistress.

Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away, in northern India, two remarkable people, Scylla and Carolman Paget, twin cousins of the hateful Captain, have begun a seemingly impossible flight for their lives, pursued by the soldiers of a vengeful maharajah. On their journey, by foot, elephant, camel, horse, raft and sail, they are helped by the dashing Colonel Cameron, and American adventurer.

After crossing the savage kingdoms of Kafiristan, Afghanistan, Persia, and Turkey, the twins encounter further dangers by sea but finally arrive at their cousin's house in England. In the Hermitage, though, a dark and violent confrontation awaits them -- and a series of passionate acts ensue which are to change forever not only Fanny Paget's life but also the lives of her two cousins and all involved with the household...