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Amanda: A Novel
Post-WWI England is a nation in upheaval, its foundations shaken by the Great War and the collapse of genteel Edwardian society. The streets are haunted by shell-shocked men, runaways, mutilated veterans, damned poets, and revolutionaries.
Marion has fled Galway for Oxford after her elopement with a violent man ended violently. In the City of Dreaming Spires, where the cobbled streets, barely lit pubs, and underground book presses hum with restless energy, she meets Jamie, a damaged soul like her who is struggling to recover from his experiences at the front. He alone sees her scars. She alone knows his secret name. Their love is wild, anarchic, dangerous, absolute. Everything, it seems, is at stake. When the “talkers” in Marion’s head get too loud and the circumstances of her life too dire, she disappears, leaving Jamie bereft and without word. But their love is like gravity--an undeniable force pitted against the dark forces that would keep them apart.
At once an erotic drama, a formally inventive romantic epic, and a historical novel written with an emotional intensity that bears comparison to classics like Wuthering Heights, Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square, and Madame Bovary, Amanda is a poignant, atmospheric meditation on love, trauma, and redemption. H.S. Cross delivers an unforgettable novel on the infinite varieties of human experience.
Marion has fled Galway for Oxford after her elopement with a violent man ended violently. In the City of Dreaming Spires, where the cobbled streets, barely lit pubs, and underground book presses hum with restless energy, she meets Jamie, a damaged soul like her who is struggling to recover from his experiences at the front. He alone sees her scars. She alone knows his secret name. Their love is wild, anarchic, dangerous, absolute. Everything, it seems, is at stake. When the “talkers” in Marion’s head get too loud and the circumstances of her life too dire, she disappears, leaving Jamie bereft and without word. But their love is like gravity--an undeniable force pitted against the dark forces that would keep them apart.
At once an erotic drama, a formally inventive romantic epic, and a historical novel written with an emotional intensity that bears comparison to classics like Wuthering Heights, Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square, and Madame Bovary, Amanda is a poignant, atmospheric meditation on love, trauma, and redemption. H.S. Cross delivers an unforgettable novel on the infinite varieties of human experience.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
336 pages, Hardcover
Published September 23, 2025
1 person is currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
H.S. Cross
9 books12 followersH. S. Cross was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. She was educated at Harvard College and has taught at Friends Seminary, among other schools. She lives in New York. Wilberforce is her debut novel, and she is currently working on a second book set at St. Stephen's Academy.
Source: Author's website.
Source: Author's website.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 16, 2025
3.5 stars
I listened to Amanda and got lost a little in the switching narrators and identities, but overall I enjoyed this story of lovers seeking to rekindle their once-forbidden romance. It seems it's part of a larger series that I will likely continue with in the future. Surprisingly, there was a lot of pedagogical talk in the novel - or at least what passed for pedagogy in 1920s British boarding schools - so the inner-workings of institutions intrigued me. I also thought that Cross stripped away the perceived propriety of the era, writing of sexual encounters and other naughty aspects of life with a freedom that one doesn't usually find in books of this epoch. The author is an American, too, which threw me for a loop. She wrote British life of the period, the idiosyncrasies, patterns of speech, etc. brilliantly (at least, I thought so, as an American reader). In short, Amanda was a bit dense for my listening acumen, but well worth the story told.
I listened to Amanda and got lost a little in the switching narrators and identities, but overall I enjoyed this story of lovers seeking to rekindle their once-forbidden romance. It seems it's part of a larger series that I will likely continue with in the future. Surprisingly, there was a lot of pedagogical talk in the novel - or at least what passed for pedagogy in 1920s British boarding schools - so the inner-workings of institutions intrigued me. I also thought that Cross stripped away the perceived propriety of the era, writing of sexual encounters and other naughty aspects of life with a freedom that one doesn't usually find in books of this epoch. The author is an American, too, which threw me for a loop. She wrote British life of the period, the idiosyncrasies, patterns of speech, etc. brilliantly (at least, I thought so, as an American reader). In short, Amanda was a bit dense for my listening acumen, but well worth the story told.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews