Mount Royal

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, best known for the sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret, wrote this earlier work of Victorian fiction. Its story turns on emotional manipulation and a rigid sense of moral duty, which together shape two wounded lovers and a marriage that never suits either of them. Christian belief, rather than the New Testament as such, runs through the novel as a major theme. Braddon's readers will find plenty of incident here, though the book lacks the tight suspense of her later work.