Set in London in 1924, this is the story of Evelyn Gifford, a woman attorney when women weren't welcomed in the legal profession. It is also the story of her brother James's death in World War I. Evelyn and her family have still not recovered from his death and are not prepared when a young woman shows up on their doorstep with a young son which she says is James's. Were it not for the fact that Edmund is the spitting image of his father, no one would have believed her.
Evelyn works in a law office as a clerk and is drawn into the case of Stephen Wheeler, a man accused of shooting his wife at point-blank range. Was he jealous? Suffering the effects of the war? Or is he innocent? It is the latter which Evelyn comes to believe. Helping her office with the case is Nicholas Thorne, a dashing young attorney who not only accepts Evelyn and her career choice but includes her in discussions of law and treats her as an equal - and becomes her love interest.
This book has two over-riding themes - love in its many versions and the after-effects of war and fighting. Six years after the end of World War I, its effects still linger in the lives of almost everyone. No one seems to be immune - from lives lost to the stresses caused by war. Evelyn herself struggles with trying to decide what love is - is it the romantic love portrayed in novels or is it the love shown by Stephen Wheeler for his dead wife? Can she live without love?
I enjoyed this book a great deal and was reluctant to see it end. I have attempted to read books by this author previously but always put them down before getting too far. What a mistake that was!
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