Ursula and Gudrun are schoolteachers living in Beldover, a small mining town in the Midlands. Gudrun finds her crucial relationship with Gerald Crich, son of the colliery owner; Ursula finds that she loves Gerald's close friend Rupert Birkin, a school inspector. As all four characters search for a fuller life, their relationships shift and change; and violence is never far below the surface. The openness with which Lawrence treated sexual relations in Women in Love and its predecessor, The Rainbow, resulted in the public rejection of both books.