The Broad Highway

The Broad Highway sequence follows Peter and Charmian Vibart from the road romance that brings them together into the problems of marriage and parenthood. The Broad Highway places Peter on the Regency roads of Kent after he rejects an inheritance conditioned on marriage; Charmian, Lady Vibart returns to the couple twenty years later when their son Richard faces a deadly duel in Paris; The Way Beyond brings the family into a murder case in which Richard himself is endangered by circumstantial evidence.

Across the three books Farnol turns the same characters through different stages of life. The first novel celebrates independence, movement and the discovery of character beyond class; the sequels ask how those ideals survive when parents must act for a child who makes his own dangerous choices. Kent, Sussex, London and Paris expand the geography, but loyalty to family and distrust of merely fashionable honour provide the continuity.