The Silken Net

A compelling story of passion, loyalty and the dangers of an obsessive relationship by the Booker Prize-longlisted and bestselling author Melvyn Bragg

Half-French and with an agile, inquiring mind, Rosemary Lewis cannot help being out of the ordinary in Thurston, the Cumbrian market town where she grows up between the wars. An early, bruising failure in love drives her inwards to the solace of books until she meets Edgar - vigorous, down to earth and determined to win her. Charting their life together, this powerful novel probes with exceptional acuity the heights and tortured depths of a bond that becomes a shackle.

'Rosemary is an outstanding creation' Sunday Telegraph

'A vigorous but never crude study of female sexuality, it is distinguished by passages of prose which have precisely the sort of leaping life that Lawrence held up before himself as an ideal all through his career' Guardian