Mary or the Perils of Imprudence

It is midsummer 1819, the sun is shining and the fields and riverbanks are thick with wildflowers. Mary Best, companion to old Lady Leland, likes to pick a selection when she goes for a walk and bring them back for her employer. It is on one of these innocuous outings that she meets an eligible gentleman in dramatic circumstances and finds her hard-won tranquillity severely tested. Her employer is encouraging but Mary, haunted by something in her past, is reluctant to put herself in emotional jeopardy in spite of knowing that, if she is to find lasting happiness, she must face her demons. Meanwhile, not far away, Susan Porter, not yet ‘out’, is spending the summer in preparation for this momentous event; two tutors have been engaged and she tries hard to master subjects for which she is convinced she has no aptitude. Lasting happiness for her daughter is not paramount amongst Mrs Porter’s ambitions. Praise for Bowness’s other books includes: ‘Catherine Bowness writes to entertain but there is much acute observation and wisdom too’; ‘writes with elegance and wit’; ‘very much in the style of Georgette Heyer’.