Jenny Lees
The third volume in the Seven Bands of Gold quartet sees our heroine Sally struggling to reconcile her consuming love for the charismatic only son of the ruler of Al Khaleej and her affection for ardent suitor Matthew, the handsome naval officer. To complicate matters further, who should turn up but Doug, the fiancé who betrayed her some years before. But sweet, dependable Matthew turns out not to be all he seemed.! Meanwhile, Doug watches unhappily from the side lines as the love between Sally and Sheikh Abdullah deepens. He is still in love with Sally and would do anything to win her back, but has to accept that Sally has changed, matured and moved on, and is unlikely to ever forgive him for breaking her young heart.
The final book in the Seven Bands of Gold series, Enduring Love, opens with Sally, hiding herself away in a village in Wales. Having made the heart-breaking decision to leave Al Khaleej and the love of her life, Sheikh Abdullah, she is determined to make a go of it on her own. Sally begins a new life with different priorities and responsibilities . However, it isn't long before her first love, the handsome and charismatic, Doug MacDonald, tracks her down when she is at her most vulnerable. Can Sally trust him to keep her secrets? Will Sally ever be able to find happiness? Or will her past continue to haunt her.
It is the mid-1960s and 17-year-old Sally is living in leafy suburbia with her bourgeois mother, kindly father and indulged younger sister. Sally is shy and naive. Her only sex education has been an excruciating lesson on the procreation of rabbits given by the nuns at her convent school. Her mother's contribution is oblique warnings that 'men only want one thing'. Quick to blush and innocent of the world, Sally shows no interest in callow youths eager to date her. Then Sally meets Doug MacDonald and the urges that have lain dormant, anaesthetised by ignorance and Catholic angst, overpower her shyness and reserve. Overnight Sally blossoms, her inhibitions caressed away by the experienced hands of an accomplished lover. She falls deeply in love and, for the first time in his life it seems, so too does Doug. However waiting in the wings to claim what she believes is hers is Moira, one of Doug's many ex-girlfriends. A web of deceit woven by Moira sends Sally fleeing to visit her best friend Caroline, who is now living in the Middle East. Sally falls in love with the desert, its people - and one person in particular.
It is 1968 and 19-year-old Sally Phillips has fled the UK for the Middle East in an attempt to heal her broken heart. Betrayal by her Scottish fiancé has made her suspicious of men and reluctant to trust them. She begins to adapt to life in Al Khaleej, making friends and finding a job. It comes as a shock one morning to find herself inexplicably dismissed from her secretarial job.
Simultaneously, she is offered very different employment at the Royal stables. Infuriated to learn that her sacking has been masterminded by a powerful man used to getting his own way, Sally hesitates to accept, but her finances leave her no choice. Incensed by his high-handed ways but secretly delighted at the thought of working with his beautiful Arabian horses, Sally resolves to keep their relationship business like – however much her heart flutters when the handsome Sheikh is near. Sally meets the attractive Naval Officer, Matthew Rawlinson and agrees to a 'no-strings' relationship.