[The Summerleas 01] • A Country Marriage

** Hampshire, England. 1829**

In the countryside of southern-England, life is hard; while rents and prices are rising, a scarcity of jobs on the land coupled with falling wages means that nothing can be taken for granted. But when seventeen-year old Mary Springer marries George Strong - a man eight years her senior - her concerns as a newly-married woman are of a different nature. Not only does she struggle to find her place in her husband's extended family but she also doubts her ability to be a good wife; finding her husband cold and distant.

And for his part, George, too, struggles with his decision to marry; his attentions claimed both by his failure to overcome an obsession with his former lover, Annie - the woman now married to his brother - and by his increasing affinity with the views of a group of protestors and rioters known as The Radicals, whose aim is to fight for social reform.

So while the apparently steady cycle of rural life continues seemingly unchanged from one year to the next, in George and Mary's marriage all is not as it seems. And with dangerous secrets being kept on both sides, can their marriage endure?

*A Country Marriage* is a tale of duty and betrayal; of family and relationships and while by no means a romance, at its heart it *is* a story of love.

**Warning:** Covering the themes of sexuality, adultery and unwanted pregnancy, this book contains explicit, adult material.

Revised and edited from the novel The Worst of Lies first published in 2011.