Romance of the Moors

In the windswept wilds of the moors, Dick Coverdale finds himself trapped in an engagement he no longer wants. Secretly betrothed to the gentle Bessie Saunders, Dick's heart falters when the independent Margaret Ellwood arrives in the neighborhood, forcing him to confront what he truly desires versus what society demands. But Margaret, wise to the impossible position she's placed Dick in, refuses to simply rescue him from his own cowardice. She knows too well that a woman abandoned carries a wound that never truly heals. When Dick's meddling aunts set their sights on manufacturing a scandal to control the young couple, all three must navigate a treacherous landscape of social expectation, private longing, and the weight of others' perceptions. Written by radical Victorian feminist Mona Caird, this is no simple love triangle but a sharp examination of marriage as institution, women's agency in a world determined to deny it, and the courage required to choose one's own path. The moors themselves become a counterpoint to the claustrophobic social world below: vast, uncaring, free. For readers who crave Victorian fiction that dares to question the altar.