Jeanne of the Marshes

Jeanne lives in the shadow of her glamorous stepmother, Princess Ena, a woman whose polished exterior conceals a will of iron. When Major Forrest arrives at their estate, haunted by debts and social anxiety, he finds himself entangled in more than one dangerous game. Also present is the enigmatic Andrew de la Borne, a man whose mysterious past and disarming manner threaten to expose the careful deceptions upon which this household's standing rests. Oppenheim crafts a world where every glance across a dinner table carries subtext, where a woman's reputation is both armor and weapon, and where identities can be shed like evening coats. This is Edwardian England at its most seductive: a society obsessed with surfaces while passions burn dangerously beneath. The romance crackles with triangular tension; the intrigue involves hidden pasts and uncertain loyalties. For readers who crave sophisticated early 20th-century thrillers with genuine romantic heat, this novel delivers. It captures a vanished world of country houses and unspoken rules, where happiness depends on which secrets stay buried, and which get unearthed at the worst possible moment.