Impediments: The Sonnet Trilogy, Book 1

The Sonnet Trilogy is about six people and spans two countries, two cultures and the societies in which they live. Their loves, losses, successes and failures take place in the turbulent 1950s and 1960s. In the US, the civil rights movement is under way. In Switzerland, the sexual revolution has dawned. In both countries, old attitudes and prejudices still prevail. Women’s liberation is still unknown, yet a few brave pioneers are throwing off the bonds of gender stereotypes. Book I, Impediments, focuses on cousins Beatrice, Gerard and Paul. Born to privilege in Geneva, Switzerland, they are sophisticated, well educated and wealthy. Their relationships will be complicated by close family ties, Gerard’s decision to go to the United States and Beatrice’s determination to become a doctor, one of the very few women to do so in Switzerland in the 1950s. The Americans Sarah, Lily and Jack are introduced, but the impact of their relationships with the Swiss and one another is fully realized in Book II, Alteration, and Book III, True Minds.