LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION The day after her wedding, Donella Ferguson Watson wakes up shackled to a man haunted by the past. The lonely days become weeks and months. A Petrol Scented Spring is a riveting novel of repression, jealousy and love, and the struggle for women's emancipation.
Arabella Scott, suffragette and hunger striker, is held in solitary confinement for five weeks, force-fed by the prison doctor, Hugh Ferguson Watson. Two years later, his wife, Donella, is trapped in a sexless marriage with a man haunted by the past.
