Snake and Sword: A Novel

A military man’s private and public courage is tested by a sequence of domestic crisis, moral trials, and violent encounters that reforge character. After the husband impulsively pins his war decoration on his wife following her endurance of a terrifying snake incident while pregnant, a circle of officers, servants, and lovers navigate shame, loyalty, obsession with form, and conflicting loyalties. Structured in three parts—welding, searing, and saving of a soul—the narrative moves between intimate peril, regimented life, and later reckonings that probe fear, self‑sacrifice, pride, and the possibility of redemption for flawed conduct and damaged affections.