In the stone-dark world of the English quarry country, a young woman finds herself trapped between a father's iron will and the stirring of her own heart. Claude Gartram, daughter of a wealthy quarry owner, has been raised in the shadow of a man who treats his workers as little more than extensions of his profit margins. When Isaac Woodham, a principled quarry worker, dares to challenge Gartram's brutal economics, Claude discovers that her father's enemies may become her own salvation, or her deepest betrayal. As she navigates a tangled web of romance, cousinly rivalry, and class warfare, Claude must choose: submit to the patriarchal castle her father has built, or claim her own sovereignty in a world that denies women any throne at all. Fenn writes with sharp eye for Victorian England's raw industrial geography and the invisible wars fought in its parlors and quarries.
