The Alchemist's Daughter

(Paperback)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Dark secrets haunt the manor house at Seldon in Buckinghamshire, where Emilie Selden, motherless, fiercely intelligent and beautiful, has been raised in near isolation by her father, John Selden, a student of Isaac Newton. He aims to turn Emilie into a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist and fills her knowledge while recording every step she makes.

In the spring of 1725, when Emilie is eighteen, father and daughter begin their most daring adventure - an attempt to breathe life into dead matter. But they are interrupted by by the arrival of two strangers.

During the course of a sultry August, Emilie is caught up in the passion of first love and, listening for the first time to her heart rather than her head, she makes her choice...with consequences that are far-reaching and tumultuous.

Reviews

A first-rate historical romance: it's hard to think it will be bettered this year * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *
This is an intelligent portrait of England in the early 18th century, as experienced by a remarkable young woman * THE TIMES *
What makes THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER more than a routine entertainment is McMahon's vivid sense of both the natural world and of the smells and illuminated darkness of Selden's workroom. We believe in Emilie and come to love her for all her follies, because she is so passionate in her experience of the world around her * INDEPENDENT *

Author Bio

Katharine McMahon is the author of four novels. She has taught in secondary schools, performed in local theatre and worked as a Royal Literary Fund fellow teaching writing skills at the Universities of Hertfordshire and Warwick. She lives in Hertfordshire.