Grace Harlowe's Problem

In 1910, three friends leave their small town for Overton College, where they'll discover who they truly are beyond the identities they left behind. Grace Harlowe, Anne, and Miriam find themselves in a world of new possibilities and pressures: demanding professors, social hierarchies, and the first whispers of independence. Together with fellow students, they form Semper Fidelis, a secret society dedicated to lifting up less fortunate students navigating the same uncertain terrain. But the real test comes when graduation approaches and Grace must choose between the marriage proposals that represent security, and the work she believes she was meant to do: managing Harlowe House, a home for students who need one. What unfolds is both a chronicle of early collegiate life for young women and a quietly radical portrait of a woman who chooses herself first. The book endures as a window into an era when women were just beginning to imagine lives beyond convention, and as a reminder that the question of career versus domesticity has been haunting ambitious women for over a century.