CREDITON author Graham Ley’s third Devon novel "Lady at the Lodge" will be published today, Thursday, December 7, by the e-book publisher, Sapere Books.

All three books follow the fortunes of the Wentworth family in the time of Jane Austen, who live in a manor house at the fictional site just to the north of Dartmoor, and close to Hatherleigh and Okehampton.

Graham has a strong sentimental link to Hatherleigh, because his grandmother came from the town, and the Ley family goes back a long way in the West Country, with an ancestor known to have been apprenticed to a coachmaker in Sidwell Street just after Waterloo.

The action in the first novel "The Baron Returns" takes place in Devon and Brittany, with exciting scenes across the slopes of Dartmoor and in the local towns, and a vivid account of the British and Breton forces at the battle of Quiberon; while in the second, "Heir to the Manor", Plymouth, with its dockyards and fashionable assemblies becomes the scene for a disturbing intrigue.

Female characters feature prominently in the story because Graham is following on from his mother Alice Chetwynd Ley, who was a renowned writer of romance set in a similar period.

Graham is passionate about the landscape and the old streets of both Devon and Brittany, and he has taken care that the action can be traced on the ground even now, whether at The George in Hatherleigh or The White Hart in Okehampton - even if the fictional manor house may sadly prove hard to find!

The novels are also published in paperback.