The Marriage Trap by Victoria Purman

A new novel from Victoria Purman, bestselling author of The Radio Hour. A charming but pointed look at the 1960s and what the pill, rebellion, and a wave of new ideas meant for ordinary Australian women. For readers of Lessons in Chemistry.

1960s Adelaide. The Langley family, Olive and Len with their two daughters, twenty-year-old Cathy and ten-year-old Evelyn, live a peaceful suburban life. Apart from Grandma Langley, who turns up each Sunday lunch like a bad fairy to dress them down for their dubious morals.

Cathy is training to be a teacher and thinks women have it tough. No sex until marriage. Then no work, child after child, and the steady sacrifice of their own desires to church, husband, and family. She's determined not to marry in a hurry. Once married, she figures, it's all over. A life no longer her own.

Young Evelyn wants to be a fairy princess. Until she sees for herself the price women pay for those dreams.

When the new contraceptive pill arrives, women can suddenly sense freedom in reach. But powerful forces are lined up against women's reproductive choice, and a fight begins. A fight that takes on their own doctors, the might of the Catholic church, and the outdated morality of previous generations.