It's 1930, and Marjorie Dean is on the verge of everything. Engaged to the steady, devoted Hal Macy, she rides through the golden California countryside with her closest friend Veronica Lynne, breathing in the future and all its possibilities. But as the ranch lands stretch out before her, Marjorie finds herself pausing to examine the strange alchemy of her own heart. Is this the life she wants, or the life she's supposed to want? Chase's forgotten 1930 novel captures a specific, fleeting moment in women's history: the last breath before the Depression reshaped everything, when a young woman could still believe her biggest problem was figuring out what she truly felt. The prose has that effervescent quality of early Hollywood romance, all sunshine and tennis parties and honest conversations about love over iced tea. Yet there's an undertow of something harder to name, a quiet urgency in Marjorie's private thoughts.
