Name and Fame: A Novel

In the fashionable spa town of Aix-les-Bains, Alan and Cora Walcott arrive for a summer of restoration, but what needs restoring most is their marriage. He is proud and cold; she is sharp-tongued and seething with resentment. As they navigate the pretty lies of polite society, their private warfare threatens to boil over into very public destruction. Sergeant writes with sharp observation about the rituals of Victorian resort life: the promenades, the casino, the careful performances of happiness that mask something far darker. The novel dissects how reputation becomes currency in a world where one's name must be protected at any cost, and where the desperate hunger for fame drives people to betray what they claim to value most. This is psychological Victorian fiction at its finest, a portrait of a marriage collapsing under the weight of wounded pride and unrelenting jealousy.