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Finalist for the Desmond Elliott PrizeA "superb debut"* novel - based on the story of the author's grandmother - following an aristocratic woman who abandons her family and her money in search of a life she can claim as her own. (*The Guardian) Enid Campbell, granddaughter of a duke, grew up surrounded by servants, wanting for nothing except love. But when her brother died in the First World War, a new heir was needed, and it was up to Enid to provide it. A troubled marriage and three children soon followed. Broken by postpartum depression, overwhelmed by motherhood and a loveless marriage, Enid made the shocking decision to abandon her family, thereby starting a chain of events - a kidnap, a court case, and selling her son to her sister for 500 - that reverberated through the generations.