A radical Arrangement by Joan Ashford

[Birdlady1950]

Margaret Mayfield is a typical gentle young woman of her day; repressed, timid, naive, totally controlled by her overbearing mother and father, totally unaware of what was happening outside her narrow world of parties, teas, and socials. Her life is ruled by the standards of the day.

Sir Justin Keigley is the opposite of Margaret. He promotes progressive legislature and improvements for the workingman and lower classes. His fellow peers consider him an oddity and dangerous; young women are warned away from him and to never be alone with him. He would be considered an activist today, a radical in his day.

Margaret and Justin meet at the yearly dinner hosted by her parents and of course, she makes a complete ninny of herself, screaming, crying, running way from Justin in the garden, and finally hitting her head and passing out. I wanted to shake her until her eyes rolled out of her head. Justin had no idea what was wrong with her, not realizing her mother had established a complete terror of him in her daughter. This starts a series of events that will change both Margaret’s and Justin’s life forever. Found kneeling by Margaret, everyone is scandalized and the parents insist Justin marry Margaret. Justin refuses to be bullied into marriage for such an asinine reason; Margaret is terrified of Justin and runs away, afraid he will agree to the marriage. For the first time in her life Margaret is on her own. Margaret will grow by leaps and bounds in her adventure as she becomes an aware caring woman, Justin pursues Margaret to return her home; Justin will see a different Margaret emerge as he recovers from Margaret shooting him; he is definitely attracted but fighting the attraction. Justin opens Margaret eyes to the horrors of the living conditions for the lower classes and the injustices. Margaret will come as radical as Justin by the time they reach their happy ever after.

It is not a smooth road, with many turns and twists, but happiness does wait at the end. I found the book light reading, enjoyable if you like novels that take place in this time period of repressed rights of woman and the lower classes. The lower classes were just beginning to revolt against the class discrimination, starvation and joblessness. I would give this book 3 stars

I received this book from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an honest opinion.