Description

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An Oprah Daily and CrimeReads Best Historical Novel of 2021

Named a Library Reads Pick, Apple Books' Best Book, Amazon Fiction & Literature's “Best of the Month,” and a Powell's Pick

The Millions' Top Ten Book of the Month

“Funny, eerie, tender, haunting and unsettling, smokily atmospheric, and fantastically enjoyable.” —Helen Macdonald, author of Vesper Flights

 

London, 1893: high up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O’Donnell’s Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow, but burning with questions: why does the seamstress jump from the window? Why is a cryptic message stitched into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances?

On the case is Inspector Cutter, a detective as sharp and committed to his work as he is wryly hilarious. Gideon Bliss, a Cambridge dropout in love with one of the missing girls, stumbles into a role as Cutter’s sidekick. And clever young journalist Octavia Hillingdon sees the case as a chance to tell a story that matters—despite her employer’s preference that she stick to a women’s society column. As Inspector Cutter peels back the mystery layer by layer, he leads them all, at last, to the secrets that lie hidden at the house on Vesper Sands.

By turns smart, surprising, and impossible to put down, The House on Vesper Sands offers a glimpse into the strange undertow of late nineteenth-century London and the secrets we all hold inside us.

About the Author

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Paraic O’Donnell is the author of The House on Vesper Sands. He lives in Wicklow, Ireland with his wife and two children, and can usually be found in the garden.

Praise For…

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Thrilling.
— TIME

Enjoyably eerie.
— The Wall Street Journal

Written with modern wit and a Dickensian sense of detail.
— Oprah Daily

A tour de force.
— The Star Tribune

Gripping, elegantly written, and very funny.
— The Seattle Times

Vivid.
— The Washington Post

Dickens is whirling enviously in his grave. . . . Read by a fire on a cold winter evening.
— The Irish Times

Part Wilkie Collins, part Conan Doyle . . . A cracking good read.
— The Guardian

Eerie. . . . haunting and fantastically enjoyable.
— Helen Macdonald, author of Vesper Flights

Shivery, suspenseful and altogether delicious, The House on Vesper Sands reads like the classic that Conan Doyle never got around to writing and marks Paraic O’Donnell as a conjuror worth following.

— Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye

The most vivid and compelling portrait of late Victorian London since The Crimson Petal and the White.

— Sarah Perry, author of Melmoth

Appealing. . . . Readers will enjoy losing themselves in O’Donnell’s atmospheric adventure, which explores themes of feminism, class and Victorian mores. . . . [A] perfect winter book club pick.
— BookPage

Stellar. . . . Fans of Sarah Perry (not to mention Dickens and Wilkie Collins) will be captivated by this marvelous feat.
— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Twisty and serpentine—there’s so much to love here.
— Book Riot

I can't possibly recommend highly enough Paraic O'Donnell's altogether riveting The House on Vesper Sands. Suspenseful, unnerving—positively bursts with inventiveness.

— Benjamin Dreyer, author of Dreyer's English

Diabolical and delicious, this is the most enjoyable mystery I've read in years.
— Sandra Newman, author of The Heavens

Clever and funny, and exquisitely disturbing, it is an utter joy.
— Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

Like the love child of Dickens and Conan Doyle, but funnier than both.
— Liz Nugent, author of Our Little Cruelties