SEA CHANGE

The author's novel 'The Warlow Experiment' was a Sunday Times Fiction Book of the Year. Teeming with historical detail she dazzles and intrigues with her unique, immersive portrayal of a turbulent period of British history. 'I'll be back soon, my love. Tonight, I hope.' The last Eve saw of her mother was a wave from the basket of a rising balloon one ill-fated afternoon in 1802. Growing up a wilful, clever orphan in the house of her erratic artist guardian Joseph, Eve comes to suspect he knows more than he is telling. She struggles to retain the image of her missing mother and the father she never knew while traversing a London beset by pageantry, incipient riots and the fear of Napoleonic invasion, with no one to guide her through its perils. Far away in a Norfolk fishing village, the Rev Snead preaches hellfire and damnation to his impoverished parishioners and oppressed wife. His morality is ostensibly irreproachable - he even plays host to a beautiful, mute woman pulled from the sea, and likes to illustrate his sermons with her good example. For as her protector he keeps a very close watch indeed. A gripping novel of obsession gone sour the pages keep turning as we absorb the stories of the three women, Sarah, Hester and Eve at the heart of this fine historical novel. 248pp.