Society Rules Two Novels: Snobs and Past Imperfect

"The English, of all classes as it happens, are addicted to exclusivity. Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them." In Snobs, Charles, heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, is one of the most eligible young aristocrats in England—at least according to the gossip columns. And when he proposes to Edith Lavery, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter of a moderately successful accountant and social-climbing mother, she accepts. But is she really in love with Charles? Or with his title, position, and all its accompanying advantages? In Past Imperfect, our narrator is summoned to the deathbed of the extravagantly wealthy Damian Baxter—a friend-turned-enemy from their raucus Cambridge days—who begs his old acquaintance for help tracking down the author of an anonymous letter claiming Baxter as the father of her child. The search takes the narrator back to the extraordinary world of swinging London, where aristocratic parents schemed to find suitable matches for their daughters while someone snuck hash into the brownies at a ball at Madame Tussaud's. It was a time when everything seemed to be changing—and not always quite as expected. These two irresistible novels immerse us in a contemporary England governed by secrets, status and upheaval.