Silk Weaver

Anna Butterfield leaves the Suffolk countryside for her uncle's London home, where she is expected to take her place in fashionable society. Her quiet, sheltered life is upended when she meets Henri, a French immigrant and silk weaver in Spitalfields, and is drawn into the dangerous business of the city's silk trade.

Henri is determined to create a masterpiece that will establish his reputation as a master weaver. Anna, hemmed in by family expectations, dreams of becoming an artist. When Henri sees that her designs could set his work apart from the ordinary, the two find a shared chance at a freer future.

Set in 18th-century Spitalfields, the novel is a love story with forbidden undertones, played out against a rising silk industry. The backdrop includes religious persecution, mass migration, racial tension, wage riots, and the strict rules that governed how women were expected to behave.