Mabel: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3)

The village of Aston, in the green heart of Gloucestershire, should offer peace. For Captain Harry Clair, returned from service in India with a body depleted and a spirit shadowed by what he's witnessed, the quiet lanes and golden light seem like a dream of another life. He walks them searching for something he cannot name, finding instead the echoes of a world that moved on while he was bleeding in distant places. But the story belongs to Mabel. Fatherless, her father's death still recent, she has already stepped into shoes far too large for her. Her mother fades into ill health, and young Amy looks to her elder sister for a steadiness that no girl of nineteen should yet possess. There is no dramatic declaration in Mabel, no flaring temperament. She simply rises, as women of her era were expected to rise, and does what must be done. Yet beneath the quiet surface of village life, currents stir. Captain Clair's arrival disrupts more than the tranquility of an afternoon stroll. His memories of India, his uncertain health, his position as a gentleman and soldier all mark him as different from the farmers and tradesmen of Aston. What begins as a story of domestic duty gradually reveals itself as something more complex: a young woman discovering what she wants from life, and whether the world will permit her to want it.