Historical Fiction Diary

The island has a way of calling you home.... Ten years ago, Emily Watson was on top of the world: a best-selling novel, a husband plucked from the pages of a magazine, and a one-way ticket to happily ever after. Now her perfect life has crumbled, and Emily is left to pick up the pieces. So when her great-Aunt Bee invites her to spend the month of March on her beloved Bainbridge Island, Emily accepts, longing to be healed by the sea.

The harshness of 19th-century life for women as seen through the eyes of a young bride. Margery Blake is nothing but a pawn in family affairs and her marriage is seen as a good match. Margery has no power, no voice, no control over her own life and endures her husband's rights to her body in order to produce an heir. Margery soon learns 'husband' is merely another title for owner, beater, brute, bully, evil. Yet, she finds friendships in the most unlikeliest places.

It is the Roaring Twenties and Monica Woodard bobs her hair and raises the hem of her dresses, but she doesn't feel liberated. The last lavish party of the season at aloof tycoon Jared Fitzgerald's "Mansion on the Rock," an event not to be missed, is that night. Reluctantl,y Monica agrees to go along with friends to crash it.

In this final volume of diaries, Tony Benn reflects on the compensations and the disadvantages of old age. With the support of a small circle of friends and his extended family, he continues his activities on behalf of social justice, peace and accountability in public life, to a background of political change and the international economic crisis.