The Skull and the Nightingale - Couverture souple

Irwin, Michael

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0007476337 ISBN 13 : 9780007476336

Editeur : Blue Door, 2013

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

“Evokes Tom Jones, The Crimson Petal and the White, and Les Liaisons Dangereuses. . . . Irwin has crafted a terrific historical novel, and an even better psychological thriller. A-” (Entertainment Weekly)

“As Gilbert becomes ever more manipulative, and Fenwick falls in love with another pawn in his patron’s game, Irwin creates an atmospheric portrait of the Georgian world in which this ambivalent rake’s progress takes place.” (Sunday Times (London))

“Amid Irwin’s spot-on descriptions of 18-century England’s squalor and splendor, the masquerades and dinner parties, this passion play mostly rests between the sheets where Lust lies. . . . Irwin’s secondary characters also fascinate . . . A tale of morals, intriguingly told.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“I really admired and enjoyed it. The atmosphere, idiom and characters are great. The plotting is terrific. And I had a genuine shock at the end.” (Jenny Uglow, author of The Lunar Men)

“Richard Fenwick is a dashing, good-looking rake in the tradition of Boswell, William Hickey, Tom Jones and Roderick Random, and his fast-moving adventures among the pubs and petticoats have a twist in the tail that is startling and well worth waiting for.” (Jeremy Lewis, author of Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family)

“A dark, compelling tale of an eighteenth-century Faustus and his Mephistopheles, which troubles the reader with a growing unease from the start and never slackens pace right up to its disturbing conclusion.” (Maria McCann, author of As Meat Loves Salt and The Wilding)

“This novel of manipulation and seduction evokes Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses. . . . [and] vividly renders the darker side of the Age of Enlightenment. Readers who like their history served up with conquest and betrayal will enjoy this page-turner.” (Library Journal)

Quatrième de couverture :

A man eager to make his fortune . . .

A godfather who initiates a dangerous psychological game . . .

An extraordinary proposition, one of discovery, pleasure–and pain.

When Richard Fenwick, a young man without family or means, returns to London from a Grand Tour of Europe in 1761, his godfather, James Gilbert, has an unexpected proposition. Gilbert has led a sedate life in the country, but now, in his advancing years, he feels the urge to experience, if vicariously, the extremes of human feeling—love and passion, in particular—along with something much more sinister. He asks Richard to serve as his proxy and to write to him of his city adventures, and his ward believes he has no option but to accept.

It quickly becomes clear that Gilbert desires correspondence of a titillating nature—tales of carousal, seduction, and excess—and so Richard begins to write of London's more salacious side. For here is an invitation to hedonism and Richard, eager to taste all that a privileged life has to offer, rises to the challenge.

But Gilbert's elaborate and manipulative "experiments" into the most intimate workings of human behavior soon drag Richard into a vortex of betrayal, where lives may be ruined and tragedy is only a step away. And when Richard does the unthinkable and falls in love, the stakes are raised and he must make a defining choice. But what sort of man has he by now become?

A chilling and deliciously dark tale of manipulation, sex, and seduction, The Skull and the Nightingale combines the intoxication of Perfume, the sensuality of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and the exquisite detail of The Crimson Petal and the White. This entrancing novel seduces the senses, bringing vividly to life the heady swirl of eighteenth-century London while exploring the darkest passions and instincts that animate us all.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Blue Door
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0007476337
• ISBN 13: 9780007476336
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 496