A Single Thread

It is 1932 and Violet Speedwell is a “surplus woman” – one of millions of English women unable to marry since World War I decimated a generation of potential spouses. Looked down on by the press, tolerated with gentle exasperation by families, these women live at a time when society has rigid expectations of what a single woman might do with her life. Violet is about to challenge those restrictions.

Choosing to leave her cantankerous mother and take up an office job in the cathedral city of Winchester, Violet searches for new friends and a new community. She unexpectedly discovers one in a volunteer group of “broderers” – women who are embroidering cushions and kneelers for the city’s magnificent cathedral.

While Violet finds friendship, support and creative fulfillment in the group, she also encounters condescension and prejudice. And in the background, fascism grows on the Continent and Hitler comes to power in Germany... In large and small ways, Violet must learn how to stand up for herself in a world that is still hostile to independent women.