A Marrying Man

Summer love rarely arrives at the right moment. For Kathleen Morrison, the weeks she spent at Alpenruh with Gareth Temple, the charming young botanist, exist in a different world from the empty London house she returns to in early September. Her brother and sister-in-law are still at the seaside. The furniture sleeps under white sheets. The silence is deafening, and yet filled with the echo of Gareth's voice, his proposals, his questions she couldn't answer. Kathleen has always been the reliable one. But that summer, something shifted. Now Gareth has asked her to marry him, and she finds herself caught between what everyone expects and what she might actually want. The question of marriage should be simple. For Kathleen, it has become the question of who she is allowed to be. Written in 1918, this is a quietly incisive novel about the small rebellions and large compromises that make up a life. For readers who appreciate Henry James or early feminist fiction.