Book
The Lady’s Slipper
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.
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