Summer's End

Outwardly, Elaine Buxton has it all—an aristocratic name, money, jewels, a castle and an amusing group of friends who adore her. She also has a secret. At age seventeen, shy Elaine, like many other daughters who had less than desirable physical traits or appalling social skills, was sent off to a select school to be polished, slenderized and taught the intricate rules of Edwardian etiquette. After returning from school after her eighteenth birthday, her mother, the formidable Lady Buxton, was delighted to find that Elaine had been transformed into a slim, refined and charming young woman and knew a brilliant marriage was forthcoming. But Elaine has a secret that could destroy everything. After the continent erupted in war, Elaine hoped she would finally be able to escape her mother’s thumb and live a brave new life like her cousins, Rowena and Victoria. But terrified for her son's safety on the battlefields of France, Lady Buxton clung to her daughter even tighter than before. When a mysterious man from Elaine’s past returns and threatens to reveal Elaine's secret, she must choose between duty to her family or defying her mother in a desperate quest for freedom and love. Summer’s End, the charming companion novella to the Summerset Abbey series, moves between the majestic Alps of prewar Europe to Belgravia’s elite drawing rooms to the wounded soldiers of London’s crowded hospitals.