Sarah Martin, fiercely independent daughter of a reform-minded mill owner has grown up in a household devoted to social progress and nothing makes her more proud or is more important to her than her dedication to changing the world, until she meets Lord John Claverton.

Sarah scorns the gentry as being superficial socially competitive and vapid, until she meets Lord John, rector of London's most fashionable church son of one of England's most powerful dukes. For the first time she finds someone who listens to her, appreciates her, argues with her, makes her face some uncomfortable truths, and inspires tantalizing and unsettling feelings.

Lord John's own uncomfortable truth is that family loyalty keeps him imprisoned in his society-conscious parish, unable to minister to the poor and needy as he longs to do, until Sarah Martin awakens in him a new sense of purpose, and other feelings he never knew he possessed.

I started writing to keep myself from going crazy hunting for a library job in the awful job market 40 years ago, and I discovered I loved it. A few months later, I got a job as a young adult librarian in what is now my local public library and finished a book over the year, setting it aside for five years while I concentrated on work (by then, Head of Reference and later Assistant Director) when I started contacting a few publishers who quickly responded with standard rejection letters until Penguin misplaced the manuscript and felt so apologetic they offered a two book contract. I published a book a year, and one reissue, for 16 years until they closed the line. Those books are still selling steadily as e-books for Belgrave House. In 2021 Camel Press brought out, Mistress of Fashion, the first book in my Ladies of Independent Means trilogy. Mistress of Charity is the second book in a duology sequel to Ladies of Independent Means. Retired from full-time library work, I continue part-time in the best job of all, reference librarian in a very busy library.