Miss Meredith

Meredith has always been the unremarkable one among her sisters, the ordinary daughter in a family of accomplishments. So when a position as governess to an ancient Italian noble family presents itself, she accepts with little expectation beyond a change of scenery. But Italy proves more transformative than she imagined. In the household of the Marchese di San Fedele, Meredith encounters a world where passion overrides propriety and ancient traditions hang in the balance. When the family's favorite son turns his attention toward her, she faces an impossible question: should she grasp the opportunity that represents everything she was taught to want, or trust the restlessness that's been quietly building inside her all along? Amy Levy, writing in the final year of her short life, brings her signature wit and psychological precision to this story of a woman who discovers that being "the ordinary one" was never the whole truth of who she was. Miss Meredith is a quietly radical novel about breaking free from the stories we tell ourselves about who we deserve to become.