The Cat's-Paw

by B.M. Croker

On a chilly New Year’s Day at sea, a young woman begins a new life far from home.

A first voyage to India becomes the setting for emotional growth, guarded secrets, and the pull of family ties. The narrator’s fraught friendship with a seasoned chaperone threads through a voyage that shifts from companionship to choice, duty, and danger.

A shipboard encounter introduces a wary, self-reliant heroine who must decide whom to trust as she faces an uncertain future. When the voyage pauses for reflection, the world she’s leaving collides with the lettered, rumor-filled world she’s entering, where a telegram and a paper could seal a fate.
What you’ll experienceA vivid slice of turn-of-the-century travel, class, and cross-cultural life.Intimate reflections on time, love, and the uncertainty of promised futures.Tense moments around family expectations, marriage, and independence.Rich character portraits, with social wit and a keen eye for detail. Ideal for readers of classic Victorian romance, travel fiction, and stories about personal courage and the pull of home in distant lands.

396 pages, Hardcover

Published August 24, 2018

About the author

Bithia Mary (or May) Croker (née Sheppard, c. 1848-1920) was an Irish novelist, most of whose work concerns life and society in British India. Her 1917 novel The Road to Mandalay, set in Burma, was the uncredited basis for a 1926 American silent film, of which only excerpts survive. She was also a notable writer of ghost stories.
Wikipedia