The Loyalty of the Mitford Sisters

1930s. The world is engulfed in political chaos, Great Britain is under the yoke of a terrible economic crisis, and the eccentric Mitford sisters, heirs of an influential but impoverished aristocratic family, find themselves at the center of yet another scandal.

The proud beauty Diana marries a lord, but the echoes of strict Victorian morality are unable to hold her for long in the role of a submissive wife: she falls in love with Sir Oswald Mosley and the political movement he advocates—fascism. The ideological sympathies of the disobedient Unity also raise concerns among the household: she openly admires Hitler, regularly visits Germany, and maintains connections with high-ranking Nazis. At the same time, the rebel Jessica joins the communists and, together with Churchill's nephew, heads off to the civil war in Spain. When Nancy—the eldest sister, a talented writer acquainted with Evelyn Waugh—witnesses dangerous conversations and finds compromising documents on the eve of World War II, she faces a difficult choice: remain loyal to her family or to her convictions.

Marie Benedict, the author of numerous bestsellers translated into three dozen languages, has written a novel about women without whom the history of not just a country, but an entire continent, is unimaginable.