A panoply of characters bring Victorian London’s polarised society vividly to life. The lives of two orphans brought up by their grandfather and a baby found in the Thames become dangerously bound together. This is the gloriously gothic follow up to The Somnambulist.
Click here to read a Q&A with Essie Fox about this book.
In addition to our Lovereading expert opinion for Elijah's Mermaid a small number of Lovereading members were lucky enough to be invited to review this title - 'Elijah's Mermaid is a book that is totally different...What a marvellous eye-opener and a pure piece of escapism!' - Sallyann Spittle. Scroll down to read more reviews.
Since she was found as a baby, floating in the Thames one foggy night, the web-toed Pearl has been brought up in a brothel known as the House of Mermaids. Cosseted and pampered there, it is only when her fourteenth birthday approaches that Pearl realises she is to be sold to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, the orphaned twins, Lily and Elijah, have shared an idyllic childhood, raised in a secluded country house with their grandfather, Augustus Lamb. But when Lily and Elijah go on a visit London, a chance meeting with the ethereal Pearl will have repercussions for all of them, binding their fates together in a dark and dangerous way...In this bewitching, sensual novel, Essie Fox has written another tale of obsessive love and betrayal, moving from the respectable worlds of Victorian art and literature, and into the shadowy demi-monde of brothels, asylums and freak show tents - a world in which nothing and no-one is quite what they seem to be.
Before taking up writing Essie Fox worked as an illustrator – designing greetings cards and wrap, and decorative ceramics. She is the creator of The Virtual Victorian www.virtualvictorian.blogspot.com a wonderful guide through the Victorian world. Her debut novel The Somnambulist was selected as a Channel 4 Book Club choice in January 2012 and was shortlisted in the New Writer of the Year category of the 2012 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS. Essie Fox divides her time between Windsor and Bow in the East End of London.
Click here to read a Q&A with Essie Fox about Elijah's Mermaid.
