The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne: A Novel

When Marcus Ordeyne's family drowns in a shipwreck, he feels something shocking: relief. A middle-aged schoolmaster suddenly freed from the tedium of teaching, Marcus discovers he's inherited a title, an estate, and the crushing weight of social expectation. His Aunt Jessica immediately begins maneuvering him toward a suitable marriage, but Marcus has no intention of trading one prison for another. Then Carlotta appears: a young Syrian refugee, untamed and unapologetically lost in London, who upends every calculation. What follows is a sparkling Edwardian comedy of manners, as a man who desired only freedom finds himself responsible for something he never expected: another person. Locke writes with sharp wit and genuine tenderness about the collision between convention and desire, between the obligations we inherit and the lives we actually want to live.