Description

The estranged grandson of a wealthy collector of human curiosities becomes fascinated with teenaged twin sisters, leading them into a web of dark obsessions. A dazzlingly dark gothic novel from the bestselling author of The Somnambulist.

‘Makes skilful use of the tropes of Victorian gothic fiction… a story of society’s outsiders seeking acceptance and redemption’ Sunday Times

‘An inventive slice of gothic fiction, big-hearted and full of strangeness’ The Times

‘A dazzling kaleidoscope of darkness and light’ Laura Purcell

‘A magical, macabre masterpiece’ A.J. West

‘Brimming with Victorian wonders!’ Sean Lusk

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Victorian England. A world of rural fairgrounds and glamorous London theatres. A world of dark secrets and deadly obsessions…

Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn’t grown a single inch since she was five. Coerced into promoting their father’s quack elixir as they tour the country fairgrounds, at the age of fifteen the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as ‘Captain’.

Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather, Lord Seabrook, a man who has a dark interest in anatomical freaks and other curiosities … particularly the human kind. Resenting his grandson for his mother’s death in childbirth, when Seabrook remarries and a new heir is produced, Theo is forced to leave home without a penny to his name.

Theo finds employment in Dr Summerwell’s Museum of Anatomy in London, and here he meets Captain and his theatrical ‘family’ of performers, freaks and outcasts.

But it is Theo’s fascination with Tilly and Keziah that will lead all of them into a web of deceits, exposing the darkest secrets and threatening everything they know…

Exploring universal themes of love and loss, the power of redemption and what it means to be unique, The Fascination is an evocative, glittering and bewitching gothic novel that brings alive Victorian London – and darkness and deception that lies beneath…

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‘Fascinating and immersive’ Anna Mazzola

‘It had me spellbound’ Louisa Treger

‘A wonderful, captivating carnival of a novel’ Elizabeth Fremantle

‘Essie Fox’s best novel to date – weaves terrors with triumphs, heartache with hope’ Culturefly

‘A scintillating cabinet of curiosities’ Foreword Reviews

‘A cast of characters Dickens would be proud of’ Frances Quinn

‘Rich, dark and heady … a glorious gothic carnival’ Kate Griffin

‘Magnificent … a triumph’ Dinah Jefferies

‘A tender, beautifully written meditation on what it meant in Victorian times to be an outsider’Historical Novel Society

‘Darkly gothic, but surprisingly tender … rendered with such magical and often terrifying authenticity. A marvel’ Damian Dibben

‘Filled with gothic darkness and glorious hope’ Liz Fenwick

‘Full of horrors and delights’ Bridget Walsh

‘An opium trance of a novel, a vivid fantasmagoria’ Noel O’Reilly

‘Deliciously dark, full of twists and surprises’ Liz Hyder

‘What a triumph!’ Emma Curtis

‘Very fine historical fiction’ Emma Carroll

‘Truly unexpected and original’ Kate Forsyth

‘A dizzying potion of a novel’ Polly Crosby

‘A sumptuous, gothic treat’ Caroline Green

‘Exceptional storytelling’ Nydia Hetherington

‘I loved this group of wonderful “others”‘ Marika Cobbold

‘An exquisite novel’ Erika Mailman

‘Haunting and emotive’ Gill Paul

‘A twisty, gothic treat … wild and wonderful cast of characters’ Rebecca John

‘Rich in peril, tempered with strange, theatrical beauty’ Kate Mascarenhas

‘Buy it. Read it. Love it!’ Eleanor Anstruther