First published 2020
An elderly woman sits with a manuscript she wrote decades ago, hesitating to open it. The memoir contains her story of forbidden love and the sacrifices it demanded. She must decide whether to relive these memories that stretch from the Victorian era through the aftermath of World War II. As she weighs this choice, the weight of her past presses against the present. Her story captures the social constraints and emotional complexities of aristocratic life across multiple generations. The decision to read or not to read becomes a question of whether she can bear to face what she gave up and what she chose to keep. Bolton crafts a meditation on memory, love, and the prices we pay for the lives we construct.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: past-present-narrative, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Victorian Era, World War II
Period: Victorian Era, World War II
178 pages · Kindle Edition · Dover Publications