One of our Great Reads You May Have Missed in 2012.
Shortlisted for the Specsavers National Book Awards 'New Writer of the Year' 2012.
Featured on The TV Book Club on More4 on 12 February 2012.
This debut novelist's coming of age story uses evocative language to transport you to late 19th century Victorian England where lost love, grief, dark secrets and hidden passions take hold of the life of seventeen year old Phoebe Turner. It's well researched and a good page turner.
'Some secrets are better left buried...' Phoebe Turner visits Wilton's Music Hall to watch her Aunt Cissy performing on stage, she risks the wrath of her mother Maud who marches with the Hallelujah Army, campaigning for all London theatres to close.
While there, Phoebe is drawn to a stranger, the enigmatic Nathaniel Samuels, who heralds dramatic changes in the lives of all three women. When offered the position of companion to Nathaniel's reclusive wife, Phoebe leaves her life in London's East End for Dinwood Court in Herefordshire - a house that may well be haunted and which holds the darkest of truths...
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.
