The Lady’s Slipper

by Deborah Swift Book 1 in the 17th Century Women series.

First published 2010

Amazon

4.2(3,004)

Westmorland, 1660. Artist Alice Ibbetson becomes obsessed with a rare lady’s-slipper orchid growing on land controlled by Richard Wheeler, a recent Quaker convert. Convinced that the fragile plant must be saved, she takes it without permission. The theft seems small, but in a community already unsettled by political restoration and religious suspicion it becomes the first link in a chain of accusation, violence and murder.

Alice’s comfortable assumptions about property, faith and respectability are tested as Richard’s nonconformity exposes both of them to danger. The novel uses a botanical mystery to explore Restoration England beyond the court, showing how religious persecution and local loyalties could transform private disputes into matters of survival.