On my blog today, I am delighted to welcome VICKY ADIN, to tell you about Sarah’s Destiny, the first book in her Ancestors historical fiction series set in Victorian England.
The story is set in the prosperous West Country city of Bristol, and is inspired by one of Vicky’s true-life ancestors. Vicky has written a fascinating article about the historical background to the location and about that ancestor, which you can read below.
What is the book about?
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?
The history behind Sarah’s Destiny
by Vicky Adin
History is what guides the storyline of all my novels, but genealogy inspires the characters.
I love running down rabbit holes and following branches that lead to twigs and leaves 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.
Sarah’s story is inspired by a true-life ancestor. I had sidestepped into her tree while looking for details about my third and fourth great-grandparents and was astounded. I’d found Sarah on every census from 1841, starting as a seven-year-old through to 1901. Alongside those records were numerous birth, death, or marriage certificates, baptismal records, newspaper articles and notices. Intrigued, I began to think Sarah had a story worth telling. Hers was no simple story.
At that time, Bristol was already a progressive and prosperous city with a busy commercial port bringing huge trade opportunities from around the world, as well as a regular coastal trade. It had a reputation for standing up against slavery, promoting the advancement of the sciences, the arts, and theatre, and had a zoological park. Over the years, the public transport and railway systems expanded enabling people to attend the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London. Bristolians favoured women’s suffrage and Isambard Kingdom Brunel made an enormous impact on the city, especially with the opening of the Bristol Suspension Bridge in 1864. All that history, plus more, furnished me with an immense backdrop to incorporate into the everyday life of the characters. Not that they always behaved themselves.
I’ve never been to Bristol so I used Google Earth to ‘wander’ down the same streets that Sarah would have done. Through archived maps and census records, I found The White Hart Inn, the pub where Sarah had grown up, on the corner of the Welsh Back and King Street.
A ‘back’ is a Bristolian word for a wharf and the Welsh Back is the cobblestone street running along the length of the famous floating harbour built in 1809. That is where the trows, (specially designed boats with folding masts to get under the low bridges) from Wales came across the notorious Bristol Channel and tied up to unload their wares.
Today, the Welsh Back is still a thriving hub for restaurants and bars to feed and entertain the locals and visitors alike with many of the buildings dating back to Sarah’s time. A new bar and restaurant operates on that same corner but the White Hart name belongs elsewhere. I love the fact that the core of England never changes. Some new buildings and road realignments but in essence what Sarah knew, I could view. While I’d be in awe of walking along the same cobblestones that Sarah walked on, few would make the connection.
We can never know what people said or how they felt or behaved, we can only surmise. What writers do is fill in the gaps. I wrap the history of the time around their lives and love imagining what life had been like for them.
The real-life Sarah was a Victorian woman who had two husbands, gave birth to eight children and lost three but mystery still surrounds who fathered which child. She could read and write. She was a witness at a murder trial. She defied conventions. She held a victualler’s licence in her own name, and her loyalty was rewarded with loyalty from others.
Amongst the dramatized facts, the characters take liberties – as they always do. The fictional staff, customers, and workers, all cause Sarah a great deal of trouble. She is threatened and coerced. She has to make tough decisions that affect other people. She is constantly defending herself while trying to maintain her dignity and strength, but there is one person who offers her hope, and she will cling to that hope against all odds.
What I discovered amounted to an enduring love affair spanning four decades, complete with all its emotional upheavals. How could I resist? And so began Sarah’s Destiny.
Book details
Sarah’s Destiny was published in April 2025 by AM Publishing NZ, and is available from Amazon as an eBook and in paperback.
It is available to read in Kindle Unlimited.
Universal Buy Link
About the author
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.
You can connect with Vicky via social media:
Book Bub • Amazon Author Page • Goodreads
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Thank you ever so much for hosting Vicky Adin today, with such an interesting background history article linked to her captivating new novel, Sarah’s Destiny.
Take care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club