DESPERATE MOTHERS An historical fact based novel. 1839 Bristol England. Queen Victoria has been on the throne for just two years. It is an age of prosperity and optimism, but for many, life is little more than a never ending misery. Thrift, hard work, religious and moral piety is established as true Victorian values. In this society women are not supposed to have sexual impulses and young unmarried ladies are expected to remain in a state of simpering virginity. Sex outside of marriage is a deadly sin and those who violate this rule are fallen women; their children born in sin and marked for life. For desperate unwed mothers the choices are Workhouse, Prostitution, Adoption or Death. To these young women, a baby farmer, willing to adopt their baby for a sum of money, seemed the perfect solution. How could they know that the society that pilloried the unmarried mother and did little or nothing for the unwanted child would create a monster?