Sarah’s Destiny
(The Ancestors)
By Vicky Adin
Publication Date: April 9th, 2025
Publisher: AM Publishing New Zealand
Pages: 354
Genre: Historical Fiction / Women's Historical Fiction
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?
Five Minute History with Vicky Adin
Sarah’s Destiny opens in 1851. At that time, Bristol was already a progressive and productive city with a busy commercial port bringing huge trade opportunities from around the world, as well as a regular coastal trade. It equally 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 railway systems expanded, the Crystal Palace Exhibition opened, 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.
None of this mattered to Sarah, only in-so-far as such activity supplied customers for their inn, The White Hart on the corner of the Welsh Back and King Street. However, it furnished me with an immense backdrop to incorporate into the everyday life of the characters. Today, the Welsh Back is still a thriving hub for restaurants and bars to feed and entertain the travellers and visitors alike with many of the buildings dating back to Sarah’s time. While I’d be in awe of walking along the same cobblestones that Sarah walked on, few would make the connection.
Even so, Bristol itself was not the drawcard. What drew me to research the history of the city was the real-life Sarah’s story. As a dedicated genealogist who loves digging into the past I was astounded by the facts of Sarah’s life. The more I researched, the more intrigued I became. The more I unearthed, the more determined I became that Sarah’s true-life story needed telling.
With the results of every census between 1841 and 1901 in my hand and the many birth, baptismal, marriage, and death certificates relating to the immediate and wider family, alongside newspaper reports and notices, Sarah life story lay before me. I have fictionalised the names, and added fictionalised characters as staff, customers and workers, but her story is fact with some literary licence. We can only surmise what was said, or how people felt and behaved but everything else in history that was new, available or common has been built into the story. I had a lovely time.
Sarah is a great-great-aunt, but I only wandered into her branch by accident looking for a lead. If you don’t know anything about genealogy, take it from me, it’s an addictive hobby. Once you find one lead you keep going until you have another and another. After I’d stumbled across some of the facts, I couldn’t let go.
The real-life Sarah was a Victorian woman who gave birth to eight children and had two husbands, but who was the father of which child? She could read and write. She was a witness at a murder trial. She defied conventions and attended the funerals of three of her children. She held a victualler’s licence in her own name, and her loyalty was rewarded with loyalty from others.
During her time, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management was published – surely, it would have been a well-used item in her home offering modern advice and new recipes – and the serialisation of Charles Dickens’ stories provided her with the opportunity to fulfil her earlier youthful dreams of a life beyond the Back.
Without doubt, she was as progressive as the city she lived in. She was a woman with convictions and determination. A strong woman for whom love was the ultimate goal and ultimate reward. I delighted in writing her story to share with the world.
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
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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