Part of the British Library Women Writers series, rediscovering
forgotten works by early to mid-century women writers with beautiful new
editions
Julia Almond believes she is special and dreams of a more exciting and
glamorous life away from the drab suburbia of her upbringing. Her work
in a fashionable boutique in the West End gives her the personal freedom
that she craves but escape from her parental home into marriage soon
leads to boredom and frustration. She begins a passionate affair with a
younger man, which has deadly consequences.
Based on the events of a sensational murder trial in the 1920s - the
Thompson/Bywaters case - Julia becomes trapped by her sex and class in a
criminal justice system in which she has no control. Julia finds herself
the victim of society's expectations of lower-middle- class female
behavior and incriminated by her own words.
Tennyson Jesse creates a flawed, doomed heroine in a novel of creeping
unease that continues to haunt long after the last page is turned.
Part of a curated collection of forgotten works by early to mid-century
women writers, the British Library Women Writers series highlights the
best middlebrow fiction from the 1910s to the 1960s, offering escapism,
popular appeal and plenty of period detail to amuse, surprise and
inform.