The Long Masquerade
THE BATTERED INNOCENT

Emma Delaney, who knows nothing of life's shams, is forced into an arranged marriage with Oliver Foy, a wealthy Jamaican planter, only to discover he is a sadist and a beast.  She can tell no one.  She is trapped.

THE BRAVE YOUNG WOMAN

But after he abuses her unmercifully, she runs away and sails the Caribbean with her faithful Chinese friend Daniel.  For three years Daniel's ship is their home.  Sometimes Emma disguises herself as a boy.  More frequently, she pretends to be a coolie girl who speaks only pidgin English.  It is in this guise that she meets -- and saves the life of -- a man whose friendship drastically alters her destiny.

THE LONG MASQUERADE

But the masquerade continues.  In England Emma falls in love with someone she must pretend not to love.  Still no one knows who she really is.  One day past secrets will have to be shed.

But will the man she loves accept the woman she was so long ago?

Emma Delaney knows nothing of life's shams. She is without pretext and assumes that a bright future awaits her as the bride of the wealthy Oliver Foy. Too soon she discovers that her life is a masquerade and pretense her only salvation.

No one is whom he or she appears to be in Madeleine Brent's colorful adventure of passion and intrigue. Brushing against the concealed identities and hidden motives of others, Emma quickly acquires secrets of her own.

When murder compels Emma to flee her husband's Jamaican plantation, she and a faithful friend find sanctuary wandering the Caribbean. Tragedy cuts short their ocean idyll and delivers Emma from her sea roamings. Once again, she adopts another name, another home, another appearance.

In love with a man she must pretend not to love, Emma continues her masquerade amid a Bohemian life in late-nineteenth-century London. When the secrets of her past finally overtake her, it is time for all masks to be shed, all secrets to be told.
