The Summer of the Spanish Woman by Catherine Gaskin

Charlotte Drummond is barely 17 when her grandfather dies, and because the estate is entailed and thus goes to a male heir, she and her mother go on living at Clonmara, despite knowing they will have to leave when their distant cousin, Richard Selwin, the new Lord Blodmore, takes possession.

The Irish Sea crashed in breakers on the sand in the fury it still possessed from last night’s storm, and the man and the horse came towards me like the thunder of the sea. I knew at once who he was, and I had been prepared to dislike him, even to hate him. But I saw now the man and the stallion almost at the one being, and I coveted them both.

Love at first sight, on both sides, is rarely convincing but somehow Gaskin makes this electric awareness of each other believable, and Charlotte has just enough time to think that now she won’t have to leave her beloved Clonmara, before Richard reluctantly tells her he just married a Spaniard, who has accompanied him to Ireland. Although Elena is beautiful (and rich), it was not a love match, and he seems to be suffering as much as Charlotte, who is devastated.

The Irish estate is in a bad financial situation but Charlotte’s grandfather left behind a house in Spain and some shares in a vineyard, which he bought 25 years earlier during a romance with a Spanish noblewoman, which ended badly. With nothing to lose, Charlotte and her mother move to the Spanish town of Jerez. Lady Pat, as she is known, continues to drink hard and ride horses, without much concern for their practically penniless state.

Charlotte is surprised by the hostility she encounters in Jerez, and learns there is a lot about her grandfather and his experience in Spain she never knew. More importantly, she has to take responsibility for her mother and figure out a way to subsidize a very modest way of life. This means not only frugal living but also learning as much about sherry and its production, although this is not seen as suitable for a woman, let alone one as young as she. She also needs to forget Richard and try to find happiness herself.

There is a lot going on in this book! It is a sweeping historical novel that combines romance, suspense and multigenerational family conflict, set in Ireland and Spain from 1909 to the Spanish Civil War and murmurings of WWII. I was not as fascinated by sherry and its cultivation as Charlotte but I appreciated how her enthusiasm and growing knowledge reluctantly impressed her adversaries and how she coped with the trials and tribulations that followed her. There is one moment that says it all about their decrepit new home and Lady Pat – exploring the cellar of the house, they find thousands of wine bottles, which “must have cost a fortune to stock . . .” and Charlotte wonders hopefully that they can sell it but her mother starts planning which ones to sample first, and “[Charlotte] sighed. We would never sell the wine. It would be drunk.”

Catherine Gaskin was Irish by birth but grew up in Australia, where her first novel was published when she was just 17. Her storytelling focused on characters possessing both romance and practicality, and although she herself was happily married to the same man for most of her adult life, she would have been a firm believer in the old song,

And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you’re with!

Some of her books have been reissued and some are available through the Internet Archive. I particularly recommend The Lynmara Legacy and Sara Dane.

Title: The Summer of the Spanish Woman
Author: Catherine Gaskin
Publication: Doubleday, hardcover, 1977
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: Arms Library, Shelburne Falls (named after these falls at the other end of Massachusetts)

Reading The Summer of the Spanish Woman contributed to this challenge:

• Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2026