Medium sized paperback in very tidy condition. There is a red line drawn across bottom pages.

1639 Zeal Beester, the mistress of the rolling Hampshire estate of Hawkridge, is pregnant and unwed. The King has banished her lover to the New World and the Puritan Praise-God Gifford would have her burnt on a charge of depravity.

To save herself and the child, Zeal becomes the wife of Philip Wentworth, an ageing soldier and adventurer. But Philip's extraordinary tales of El Dorado only remind her of her exiled lover.

As the Civil War approaches, Zeal begins to rebuild Hawkridge House as the Memory Palace - a secret map of her heart. Part maze, part theatre, part great country house, it enrages the Puritans and inspires in one twisted soul a hatred and envy that only death will satisfy.