The Mayor of Warwick

A young professor arrives at a half-finished college in provincial England, and nothing is quite what it seems. Llewellyn Leigh has taken his position at St. George's Hall in Warwick full of scholarly ideals, but he quickly discovers that the quads of academia are as plagued by petty politics as any mayoral campaign. The college itself remains incomplete, one wing still missing, its empty foundations a literal reminder of ambitions deferred. When Leigh meets Felicity Wycliffe, the bishop's daughter, his attention shifts from ancient texts to more immediate intrigues. Meanwhile, the town of Warwick bristles with political ambition, and the college's hierarchy proves just as susceptible to local power plays as any polling station. Hopkins writes with sharp observation about the small dignities and large absurdities of provincial English life, where a building project becomes a referendum on dreams, and where a young man must navigate between the books he loves and the world that insists on intruding.