In 1865, in the polite drawing rooms of Victorian Bath, Jane Adeane discovers that the heart is rarely obedient.
Islands of Mercy follows Jane Adeane, a gifted nurse and the daughter of a respected surgeon, as she confronts the limits placed on her by r male expectations. When she turns down a proposal of marriage and forms a passionate bond with another woman, Jane is torn between security and secrecy.
Across the globe, in the jungles of nineteenth-century Borneo, the man Jane rejected pursues his own fraught journey, driven by rivalry, pride and longing. Meanwhile Clorinda Morrissey, newly arrived in Bath, attempts to fashion a life of independence from the fragments of her past.
A novel set between nineteenth-century England and the colonial world, Islands of Mercy asks what it costs to follow your heart, and whether you can live with the consequences
'A hell of a read' Sunday Times
'Triumphant and beautifully told...one of the best novelists writing today' Sara Collins, Guardian
