In Victorian London's glittering but ruthless society, Lady Perivale returns from her Italian villa to find her reputation in ruins. Whispers follow her like shadows about Colonel Ronnock, about a love that society has deemed improper. Once feted and fashionable, she now faces a cruel arithmetic: a widow with desires in an age that grants women no such liberties. Her former friends vanish into thin air. Letters go unanswered. The only warmth comes from Susan, an old friend who asks no questions and offers no judgment. M.E. Braddon, the queen of sensation fiction who scandalized readers with "Lady Audley's Secret," returns to her favorite territory: the yawning gap between what society demands and what the heart requires. This is a novel about the particular cruelty of a world that celebrates female purity while quietly envying male freedom. Lady Perivale's sin is not merely love but the audacity to want it on her own terms. In an era when a woman's reputation could be destroyed by a rumor and rebuilt only by years of compliant silence, Braddon asks whether compliance is worth its price. For readers who savor the Gothic excess of Victorian sensation fiction, for anyone who delights in watching hypocrisy meet its match.
