Sarah's Destiny
(The Ancestors)
By Vicky Adin
Young Sarah Daniels is the heart, soul and future of The White Hart Inn on the Welsh Back. Alongside the quay and wharves on Bristol’s floating harbour, she dreams of finding love, and a destiny where she can escape the drudgery and tragedy that life usually delivers Victorian women. But dreams are free, and few share her ideals. When reality strikes, and Sarah learns the hard way that life is unkind, one man offers her hope.
Through many decades of heart-aching loss, false promises and broken dreams, the young widow clings to that one hope. With six children to care for, she takes risks few others would consider. She breaks conventions and makes sacrifices to keep that hope alive.
Will her wishes come true, or is she destined to be another unfortunate in the sea of many?
Publication Date: April 9th, 2025
Publisher: AM Publishing New Zealand
Pages: 354
Genre: Historical Fiction / Women's Historical Fiction
A conversation with historical fiction author, Vicky Adin.
What inspired you to start writing?
Are you asking only about this book or the previous nine? Either way, the answer is the same – genealogy.
In my teens I came from a family of two until I married. My husband was one of six, his father one of nine, his grandfather one of seven. Add in spouses and children, their partners and children, and I had married a village. The only way I could untangle the names, nicknames, and generations was to create a family tree.
From there my genealogy journey began and continues to this day. I love running down rabbit holes and following branches that lead to limbs, that leads to twigs, that may offer me another clue. Along the way, I discover amazing stories of resilience, of strength and determination, of love and loss. I am always astonished how stoic women were and with few laws to protect them, often made a fulfilling life for themselves. They deserve to have their stories told.
While I have written two books inspired by my husband’s ancestors, Sarah’s Destiny is inspired by one of my own.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
The location. I’m a Welsh born, Cornish raised first generation Kiwi girl who married a fourth generation Kiwi bloke with Scottish, Irish, and English roots. My previous stories have all been set in New Zealand. Sarah’s story could only be set in Bristol during the Victorian era, a place I had never visited.
I had little choice but to do extensive research. I think I utilised every repository of historical information available in Bristol including family history groups, bloggers writing about the Lost Pubs of Bristol, public transport history, seafarer’s lists, archived and interactive maps, council and government archives, engineering organisations and many, many more. Google Earth gave me the opportunity to ‘follow’ in the footsteps of my ancestors as I ‘wandered’ around the city, both old and modern, making connections and pinpointing buildings and institutions that had she would have known, seen built, or had not in existence at the time.
The Bristol dialect and unique words also had to be taken into consideration when writing dialogue. I visited many websites, learnt new words, and listened to many pronunciations trying to capture the essence at least. I would never claim I mastered the nuances, but hopefully I signalled my best intention.
A major historical event, of course, was the construction of the Bristol Suspension Bridge and what that meant to an already productive and progressive city moving towards the 20th century. The bridge’s dedicated website and the newspaper archives provided far too much material about the construction, the delays, the arguments, and the financial constraints until culminating eventually in celebration with all its pomp and ceremony. Deciding what to include and what to leave out was a challenge.
Equally, the maritime history of Bristol was huge. Long before the construction of the famous floating harbour in 1809, shipping had been a vital part of Bristol’s economy and way of life for several hundred years. Coastal trade, especially between Wales using specially designed and built trows, boats with collapsible masts that could navigate under the many bridges, flourished despite the many dangers of crossing the notorious Bristol Channel. Add in the Crimean war and Bristol was a city of great importance.
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
That would have to be Sarah herself. The real Sarah. I could hardly believe what the records of her life were telling me. Victorian England was known for its rigid morals and codes, yet Sarah defied them all for one reason, and one reason only. Love. She made sacrifices. She accepted censure and isolation and never wavered. Decades later her reward made it all worthwhile. What more could you ask? Her story was too compelling to forget.
Although, I do have a soft spot for the totally fictitious Ethel, the chattering, kind-hearted and loyal servant who enables Sarah’s misdemeanours.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
That’s a bit like asking a dinosaur if they could imagine an aeroplane. The actors I know and love from my youth are as old as me. They are no longer anything like the bright young Sarah we first meet, but as she ages, as life delivers its knocks, someone like Clare Foy or Meryl Streep – character actresses with depth – could bring her determination to life.
However, I still remember seeing a young Colin Firth, as Mr Darcy the romantic figure in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, walking out of the lake. As he’s aged, his ability to add depth and authenticity to a character would definitely suit Sarah’s love interest.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
That love conquers all. I know it’s considered a cliched phrase these days but it was first authored by the Roman poet Virgil (around 37BC according to history) “Love conquers all; let us, too, yield to love!” to suggest that love had the power to overcome obstacles and hardships.
I hope readers will gain the sense that the intrinsic nature of humans has changed little down the generations and over centuries and that true love is the ultimate goal. For Sarah, love gave her the power to overcome, and remain steadfast throughout – and to endure.
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Vicky Adin
Like the characters in her books, Vicky has a passion for family history and a love of old photos, antiques, and treasures from the past. After researching the history of the time and place, and realising the hardships many people suffered, Vicky knew she wanted to write their stories. Tales of love and loss, and triumph over adversity. Her latest release, Sarah’s Destiny, Book 1 of The Ancestors series, is inspired by a true love story set in Bristol.
Vicky particularly enjoys writing inter-generational sagas, inspired by true stories of early immigrants to New Zealand, linked by journals, letters, photographs, and heirlooms.
She’s an avid reader of historical novels, family sagas and women’s stories and loves to travel when she can. She has a MA (Hons) in English and Education. Her story of Gwenna won gold in The Coffee Pot Book Club Women’s Historical Fiction Book of Year in 2022 and several of her books carry the gold B.R.A.G medallion.
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