9 h 30 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the freedom you fight for leaves you unsure whether to trust your own heart?
Joan Rutherford leaves her uncle and aunt’s quiet country home to train as a secretary in London. Independence brings new ideas about marriage, desire, and a woman’s right to choose. Then Gilbert Stanning draws her into feelings she cannot easily name. His kisses move her, but she keeps asking herself whether attraction is the same as love.
In Hyde Park, with heliotrope scenting the summer air, Gilbert nervously knots a string and says he cannot afford marriage. Joan questions marriage itself, yet his suggestion that they become lovers unsettles her. Margaret Peterson’s romance places her bold convictions beside his selfish desires. For Joan, the urgent question is whether the freedom she claims can protect the heart she barely understands.
What you’ll discover
- Independence with an uneasy edge Follow Joan as she tests ideas far removed from Aunt Janet’s sheltered household.
- A revealing summer conversation Watch a restless piece of string betray the tension beneath Gilbert’s easy words.
- Attraction under close questioning Share Joan’s uncertainty as she tries to separate physical longing from deeper affection.
- Freedom meets selfish desire Look beneath Gilbert’s charm at a man accustomed to putting his own comfort first.
- Love beyond bold theories Explore the distance between Joan’s confident beliefs and the feelings that leave her vulnerable.
Who will love it
Readers who love Edwardian romance with a moral spine, women's stories of independence and its costs, and the home front at the start of the Great War. Fans of warm, character-led storytelling will feel at home here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A girl of new ideas says yes
- Shame creeps into the flat
- Home, and a secret that cannot stay hidden
- Cast out and lost in the fog
- Mabel's bargain and Dick's dream
- Digby Street and a hard lesson in work
- Fanny, Landon and the road to the stage
- A dancer in Sevenoaks and a tea that goes wrong
- A misunderstanding, a sickbed and a nation at war
Who’s who
- Joan RutherfordA young woman raised in the country who goes to London with modern ideas and learns that love asks more than theory does.
- Dick GrantA kind young doctor who sees Joan once, never forgets her, and wants to give her real happiness.
- Aunt JanetJoan's stern, loving aunt, who lives by strict principle and finds it hard to bear what she sees as disgrace.
- Miss AbercrombieA sharp, kind schoolteacher who understands Joan and tries to bridge the gap between her and her family.
- Fanny BellairsA cheerful, coughing actress with a loving heart who befriends Joan and wants to see her happy.
- Mabel GrantDick's quiet sister, who has served her selfish mother all her life and who gives up her own hopes for her brother.
- Gilbert StanningA handsome, selfish man who wants Joan but is ashamed of the life he persuades her into.
- Robert LandonA graceful dancer who lives by impulse and sets out to win Joan without any thought of marriage.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 9 h 30 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Amare in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Amare
Joan Rutherford, sure that marriage is a myth, says yes to Gilbert Stanning and finds out what it costs.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
To Love is a novel by Margaret Peterson, set in the years just before the First World War and in its first weeks. It follows Joan Rutherford, a bright young woman who arrives in London full of modern ideas about free love and independence, and who pays a high price for putting those ideas into practice.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A girl of new ideas says yes
The story opens in Hyde Park in high summer. Joan Rutherford is twenty-three, looks like a child, and has lived in London on her own for six months. She has an elderly uncle and aunt in the country, and she has read books they have never heard of. From those books she has taken up bold theories. Marriage, she believes, is an invention to keep women in chains, and free love is the only honest bond between a man and a woman.
Her companion is Gilbert Stanning, about thirty-two, handsome, lazy and selfish. He has known Joan for four months and wants her badly. He says he cannot afford to marry, and he suggests they simply drift together. Joan asks what he means. He answers with a speech about living at his flat and loving her until she sees the world anew.
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What is To Love by Margaret Peterson about?
It follows Joan Rutherford, a young woman who puts radical ideas about free love into practice in Edwardian London. She faces the consequences, finds work and friendship, and meets a doctor who loves her, with the First World War as backdrop.
Who is Dick Grant in To Love?
Dick is a country doctor in Wrotham who sees Joan on the day she tells her aunt her secret. He carries her image for two years, travels as a ship's doctor, and later searches for her in London.
Why does Joan call herself Pierrette?
Robert Landon gives her the name when they meet at the Artists' Ball, where she is dressed as Pierrette and he as Pierrot. He wants a romance without real names, and the name returns later in the story.
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