I have started reading this. I think I detect signs of Walter Scott influences but it is set in the west country. Chapter 2, young John gets into a fight at school with another boy att school. The Victorians approved of schoolboy fights. Chapter 3 and there are shenanigans around Dunkery Beacon. I have run up Dunkery Beacon several times. Well, not all the way up. I ran some of it. Running down it is even harder. With a title like Lorna Doone you'd worry it would be a book for girls, but it's shaping up to he a boys' own book.