What do we owe to the past? What do we owe ourselves?

Frances Wingate has it all, not least a flourishing career as an archaeologist and a razor-sharp mind. But when an old affair resurfaces – after years of on-again, off-again romance – she finds herself questioning everything she ever wanted out of life.

In The Realms of Gold, Drabble crafts a luminous story of love, purpose and regret, and captures the essence of what it means to be a woman at a crossroads.