From critically acclaimed historian Juliet Nicolson, a novel of a King and country torn between private desire and public duty on the eve of the Second World War

‘Abdication beautifully evokes the troubled thirties, with its high-stakes politics, easy money and social tensions … This is a wonderful novel’ Amanda Foreman

‘Superb … a delightful story of a friendship forged by the drama of the Abdication and the approaching war’ The Times _________________________ After the recent death of George V, England has a new king, Edward VIII. But for all the confident pomp and ceremony of the accession, it is a turbulent time.

When nineteen-year-old May Thomas arrives in Liverpool, her first job as secretary and chauffeuse to Sir Philip Blunt introduces her to the upper echelons of British society - and to Julian, a young man of conscience whom, despite all barriers of class, she cannot help but fall for.

But hidden truths, unspoken sympathies and covert complicities are everywhere, and the threat of another world war becomes increasingly inevitable…