Description
A stunning literary ghost-story of entanglement and obsession; ambition and betrayal - set in present-day Cambridge, but entangled with the 17th century
The son of a reclusive historian finds his mother's drowned body in the tributary of the River Cam that runs through her garden. She is clutching a glass prism. Elizabeth Vogelsang's magnum opus, a book on Isaac Newton's alchemy, is incomplete. Lydia Brooke, a writer friend of the dead historian, returns to Cambridge to the funeral. It is five years since she has seen Elizabeth's son, Cameron Brown, with whom she has had an intermittent love affair that began years earlier.
Cambridge, she discovers, is in the midst of an upsurge of attacks by animal rights extremists. Cameron, who, as a neuroscientist uses animal experimentation, has been targeted. Cameron asks Lydia to act as a paid ghostwriter in the completion of his mother's book, Alchemist. Lydia agrees to the proposal and moves into Elizabeth's strange house, a triangular shaped studio on the banks of the Cam. Soon Lydia finds herself entangled, not only with Cameron, but also with a four-hundred year-old murder mystery, a network of 17th century alchemists and a ghostly figure intent on disrupting her work.
A stunning literary ghost-story of entanglement and obsession; ambition and betrayal - set in present-day Cambridge, but entangled with the 17th century
About the Author
Rebecca Stott is a writer and broadcaster. She writes both fiction and non-fiction, is affiliated to the Cambridge history of science department and is Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at UEA. Her work, in radio writing, fiction and non-fiction, weaves together history, literature and the history of science. She is the author of the non-fiction book DARWIN AND THE BARNACLE and the novel GHOSTWALK.
Reviews
A creepy, unputdownable book * GOOD BOOK GUIDE *
Awards
Short-listed for Authors Club Best First Novel 2008 (UK). Long-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2009 (UK).
Book Information
ISBN 9780753823576
Author Rebecca Stott
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publisher Orion Publishing Co
Weight(grams) 252g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 133mm * 24mm
