In Mary Wesley’s Harnessing Peacocks, Hebe sits in the darkness and listens to her hypocritical grandparents and her older siblings discuss how her unexpected pregnancy must be terminated to avoid the shame it will bring.
Determined to raise her child, she flees into the night with only her mother’s jewellery to support her. Twelve years later she is living happily alone in Cornwall, whilst her son attends an expensive private school.
Hebe has harnessed her two great talents – cooking and making love – to make a living for herself. But when the separate strands of her life become entangled, her world changes forever.
‘Delightful, intelligent entertainment’ Sunday Telegraph
Plenty to Say
A few months after my mother died, my sister and I returned home to clear out her possessions. I felt unsentimental about most of them. I readily threw away clothes, keeping only a cardigan that was...
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