Description
It is the wit that really draws you in. Despite the grim background and the sometimes horrific detail, the writing is vivid and buoyant, the research and the detail impressive. I was gripped. Katharine McMahon, author of The Rose of Sebastopol, The Woman In The Picture, etc.
The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire imagines three utterly different lives, and weaves them through the brutal, vibrant world of early 19th century London to make an atmospheric, shocking and satisfying story. Emma Darwin, author of The Mathematics of Love and Alchemy
A VISITOR CALLS WITH A GIFT AND A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST…
In 1802 Thomas de Quincey, a young man from a comfortable middle-class background who would go on to become one of the most celebrated writers of his day, collapsed on Oxford Street and was discovered by a teenage prostitute who brought him back to her room and nursed him to health. It was the beginning of a relationship that would introduce Thomas to a world just below the surface of London’s polite society, where pleasure was a tradeable commodity and opium could seem the only relief from poverty. Yet it is also a world where love might blossom, and goodness survive. The lives of a street girl, an aspiring writer, and a freed slave cross and re-cross the slums of London in this novel about the birth of passion, the burden of addiction, and the consolations of literature.
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The Crimson Petal and the White – Michel Faber
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The Observations – Jane Harris
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