Manslaughter

Lydia Thorne is trouble. From childhood, she's refused to be tamed, and now as a young woman in the early 20th century, her sharp tongue and independent spirit make her a scandal wherever she goes. When she falls for the charming Bobby Dorset and finds herself drawn to the principled District Attorney Dan O'Bannon, she must navigate a world that demands women be decorative, compliant, invisible. Her guardian Miss Bennett represents the polite tyranny of social obligation, while Lydia's stubborn refusal to bend becomes both her greatest asset and her deepest source of conflict. This is a novel about the small violences done to women who dare to want more than society offers them, and the impossible choices between love, principle, and self-preservation. Alice Duer Miller writes with fierce intelligence and wit, dissecting the cages society builds around women while never losing sight of the human cost. The title Manslaughter carries an ironic edge: this is a story about the death of innocence, the murder of self that society demands, and the question of who really pays when a woman refuses to be tamed.