A Yellow Aster, Volume 2 (of 3)

Sir Humphrey Strange has stumbled into wealth and consequence, only to discover that inheritance is the easy part. In this second volume of Caffyn's provocative Victorian novel, the newly-minted gentleman navigates a world where status is conferred rather than earned, and where the heart's desires clash mercilessly with society's exacting expectations. His connections to Lady Mary and the independently-minded Gwen Waring reveal the impossible choices facing women of the era and the men who love them. Caffyn writes with sharp observation about money's strange power to clarify or corrupt: suddenly visible, suddenly watched, suddenly required to choose who one truly is. The yellow aster itself, perhaps a symbol of patience or perhaps of something more treacherous, threads through the narrative as a reminder that character is revealed under pressure. For readers who relish the psychological complexity of Henry James or the social satire of George Eliot, this volume continues a meditation on identity that remains startlingly contemporary: what do we owe to others, and what do we owe to ourselves?