The Monctons: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 2)

A devastating Victorian novel about love, jealousy, and moral ruin. Philip Mornington has squandered his youth in vice and recklessness, hollowed out by his unrequited passion for the captivating Charlotte Laurie. Now middle-aged and consumed by regret, he faces a world where his enemies maneuver to destroy him while the woman he loves remains forever beyond his reach. At the center of this tangled web lies Alice Mornington, a tragic figure crushed between personal desire and the merciless expectations of society. Susanna Moodie, better known for her Canadian pioneering memoir "Roughing It in the Bush," proves herself a fierce anatomist of the heart here, revealing how jealousy, ambition, and wounded pride corrupt every relationship they touch. This is fiction that understands passion can curdle into obsession, that love and destruction are often the same force. It endures for readers who crave Victorian darkness without the softening hand of redemption.