This book pulled me in from the opening pages. Thea married a man who was kind to her father during his terminal illness. Immediately her husband changed. He started beating her for slights real and imagined. She has experience in helping her father run a store but her husband won't take her suggestions seriously. She is only allowed to help out when he is too busy. She's bored and miserable and starting to suspect that her husband has a second illegal business running out of the shop.
Some neighbors try to help her but she can't see a way out until her husband is arrested and suddenly she has to make a life for herself.
I love historical fiction that makes you feel what it was like to live in that period. This book does a great job with that. The setting of the story is small enough to get a good sense of the neighborhood. You meet several different shopkeepers in the area and see their lives. There is also a star-crossed love story when a son of a wealthy family takes the shop next door to sell his furniture. His family absolutely does not approve of him going into trade. They really won't approve of a relationship with the wife of a criminal.
There is a lot of violence towards Thea described in this book. That could be difficult for some readers.
I would recommend this book for any lovers of historical fiction, especially stories that have romance and a little bit of mystery thrown in.