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Diary of a Lacemaker
Sukey Hughes, author
In 1749 feisty Saskia Klaassens sails from her abusive home in the Netherlands to work as nursemaid in Africa's Cape of Good Hope. At the wine estate, she is appalled by the slaves' lives even as love slowly burns for one, the stable master Titus. She struggles with the arrogant whims of her employers, all the while making lace and viewing life through its prism. When secret intrigues come to light, a storm of fear sweeps through the estate, and Saskia must decide where her loyalties lie - with her violent Dutch kinsmen or her forbidden lover. All the while she weaves what beauty she can to the rhythm of her bobbins, as events move toward their thrilling and tragic climax.
Reviews
Gerald DiPego, screenwriter, novelist
"Diary of a Lacemaker by Sukey Hughes is a deeply emotional novel that delivers Saskia Klaassens and the readers onto the shores of Dutch-ruled South Africa in 1749. She has known only a hard life in Holland and what unfolds here, with great grace and beauty, is a girl becoming a woman, learning life in a beautiful and dangerous land of owners and slaves, and keeping the secret at the center of her heart. She is a lacemaker - for the love of it, for the magic in her hands, guarding this from people who would use it for their own gain. Saskia moves into your heart in the first paragraph and lives there still when the book ends."
