Sleeping Fires

Gertrude Atherton's "Sleeping Fires" burns with a woman's refusal to accept her place. Set against the rigid Society of 1800s California, this is the story of a love so absolute it transcends propriety, convention, and perhaps even death itself. Atherton, one of California's most provocative writers, populates her novel with women who want fiercely and men who cannot contain them. The narrative moves through drawing rooms and beyond the veil of the natural world, tracing a passion that refuses to be extinguished by social law or mortal judgment. Fashion becomes armor, feminism becomes ferocity, and the question that haunts every page is simply this: what won't a woman do for the one she loves?