The Bone Flower

Book excerpt: A deliciously Gothic and atmospheric novel, one for fans of Susan Hill and Andrew Michael Hurley 'A writer who never ceases to surprise' Jenny Offill, author of Weather On a November evening in Victorian London, the moneyed but listless Edward Monteith stokes the fire at his local gentlemen’s club, listening to stories of supernatural experiences and theories of life after death. His curiosity leads him to a séance, where he falls under the spell of a beautiful flower seller. But Victorian society does not look kindly on love between a gentleman of means and a Romani girl, and when he faces being cut off by his family, Edward makes a decision with horrifying consequences. Two years later Edward is married and anticipating the birth of his first child, in a beautiful house lined with orange blossom trees. But the wrongs of the past are not so easily forgotten, and the boundary between the living and the dead begins to thin… A deliciously chilling Gothic novel, The Bone Flower is a deeply human story about guilt, betrayal and the cruelty of social expectations. A dark, uncanny love story from the author of Polari prize-shortlisted Prodigal and The Children's Home, The Bone Flower will delight fans of Edward Carey and Essie Fox.