Author(s): Jennie Fields

World fiction

"Life is always either a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope." (Edith Wharton). They say behind every great man is a woman. Behind Edith Wharton, there was Anna Bahlmann - her governess turned literary secretary, and her closest friend. When Edith falls passionately in love with a dashing younger journalist, Morton Fullerton, and is at last opened to the world of the sensual, it threatens everything certain in her life but especially her abiding friendship with her secretary. As Edith's marriage crumbles and Anna's disapproval threatens to shatter their lifelong bond, both women must face the fragility at the heart of all friendships.