Rules of the Heart
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jan 20, 2026
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A beautifully evocative historical novel about the perils of all-consuming love, inspired by a real-life eighteenth-century love affair, from the bestselling author of The Other Bennet Sister
“When I love at all, it is with my whole soul—my heart must be torn to pieces before it can forget or resign the objects of its affections.”
England, 1794. Now in her thirties, Lady Harriet Bessborough, already the veteran of several liaisons, finds herself pursued by a much younger man. This isn’t unusual in her circle, where married women often take younger lovers. No one minds much, provided they follow the rules of the game: Don’t embarrass your husband, maintain complete discretion at all times, and never ever make the mistake of falling in love.
So when Harriet meets Lord Granville—brilliantly handsome, insistently ardent, and twelve years younger than her—she’s confident she can manage their affair. Until she finds herself falling uncontrollably under his spell.
As she’s plunged into an all-consuming passion, Harriet’s worldliness and sophistication desert her. With each besotted step, she finds herself edging ever closer to exposure and ruin. She knows she should leave Granville but can’t bring herself to do it—she loves him far too deeply now to escape the scandal that threatens to engulf her.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sweeping and gorgeous tearjerker of a historical romance, Hadlow (The Other Bennet Sister) fictionalizes the scandalous relationship between Lady Harriet Bessborough and Lord Granville Leveson Gower against the turbulent close of the 18th century, when older married women often took young lovers while their husbands conveniently looked the other way. Looking back on the affair at 51 as a ruined woman with "all beauty gone," a bereft Harriet wonders whether Granville truly shared her grand passion. On the advice of her maid, Sally, she reviews his love letters, trying to understand the arc of their tumultuous 17-year relationship. At 33, after having four children in six years with clumsy and inconsiderate Lord B, Harriet felt she'd found "perfection in human form" in Granville, then a 21-year-old gambler with no title and no fortune. What starts as pure sexual gratification transforms into all consuming—and doomed—love. Along the way, Harriet endures four more pregnancies, which she must conceal, and numerous betrayals by society matrons. Hadlow makes both Harriet's passion and her grief leap off the page, creating a stirring portrait of a woman driven by her heart instead of her head. Readers should have tissues at the ready.
