Where Dreams Begin

Widow Holly Taylor is hired to teach manners and social convention to Zachary Bronson, a former bare-knuckle fighter whose business success has not secured acceptance for his family. Their relationship challenges Holly’s loyalty to the values of her late husband and Zachary’s belief that wealth can overcome every barrier.

The novel contrasts inherited gentility with the commercial fortunes of early Victorian Britain. Social tutoring, widowhood and the stigma attached to working-class origins reveal how status continued to depend on behaviour and pedigree as well as money.