Keeper of the Door

Olga Ratcliffe has never needed saving. She has her uncle Nick, the steady center of her world, and she has her own fierce will to carry her through any trial. But when the calculating Major Hunt-Goring begins his campaign of blackmail, threatening everything Olga holds dear, she finds herself ensnared in a web of impossible choices. Her dearest friend Violet becomes a weapon wielded against her, and Olga must decide what she will sacrifice to protect those she loves. Then Max Wyndham arrives. A surgeon of remarkable skill, his reserved manner hides depths of passion and integrity that gradually capture Olga's heart. When Nick is called away to India on military duty amid political unrest, Olga faces her darkest hour alone. What follows is a story of love proved through sacrifice, villainy confronted by courage, and the choice between duty and desire. Dell writes with the emotional intensity of her era's greatest romantic novelists. The story endures because it insists that love is not merely a feeling but an act of will, a decision to fight for happiness even when every circumstance conspires against it.