The Mad Mistress of Barnbury Hall

It’s 1840. Lady Juliette Huckabee-Brown is twenty-four years old and unmarried, and that’s a problem for the ailing Lord; she’s an only child and will soon inherit the estate. She needs a husband fast, but she’d even turned away an eminently suitable churchman. Her rebellious refusal to heed her father could be considered indicative of a common female mental disorder known as hysteria and, in the worst case, could lead to hospitalisation in a mental asylum. But perhaps that’s the answer. If she believes that her intransigence has led to her actually being certified insane, a short stay in a locked room in a local hospital could bring home to her the seriousness of her situation. It doesn’t even have to be a real ward or real conditions; just enough to encourage her to change her attitude. What could possibly go wrong? This is a novel of 82000 words and contains graphic scenes that are only suitable for an adult readership. Paul Enock is an Engineer and Inventor by day and an author in the evenings now living in the wilds of Worcestershire in the UK.