Unruly Passions

Margaret Phillips, Archdeacon of Saxwell, is in the prime of her life. She effortlessly combines her clerical duties in the church with a rock-solid marriage to the charming and devoted Hal.

Gervase Finch moves with his fiercely protective wife into the parsonage in the nearby village of Branlingham, before assuming the post as vicar. Although they love their spouses, Rosemary Finch and Hal Phillips are drawn together, both disturbed by ideals of womanhood: Rosemary competing with the ghost of Gervase's first wife, Hal married to a paragon.

Valerie Marler, a bestselling novelist, has also identified Hal as the object of her unruly passion, and strives to rewrite her past failures by pursuing her fictional ideal. But when Hal refuses to play his part in her love story, her revenge threatens to descend into tragedy.