The Mysteries of Glass

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Description

It's the winter of 1860 when Richard Allen, a young curate, travels to a small hamlet outside Hereford to take up his first position. It's in this quiet place of wind and trees, birds and water that Richard is to fall passionately in love - but he cannot find fulfilment, for his lover is Susannah Beddoes, the wife of the vicar of his new parish. As Richard's feelings challenge him to his core, he develops a strange relationship with another woman, the solitary and eccentric Edith Clare. Against the backdrop of immense social and industrial change, the consequences of Richard and Susannah's affair are dramatic as they - as well as Oliver Beddoes - grapple with doubt and what it means to lose faith when the great certainties are in question. And throughout it all, the crossing-keeper's daughter Alice Birley - an observer of incidents and events she does not fully understand - has her own part to play...

Reviews

Her work is so good it is unforgettable... Gee s books may be unashamedly romantic and sensual, but they are also so sparely written that the economy of her writing is often breathtaking... a beautiful, redemptive book - Jackie McGlone, Glasgow Herald

Profound and lyrical, it s full of light and darkness and the most marvellous description - Shena Mackay, Observer

This exquisitely written novel transports you to the simple beauty, poignancy and hypocrisy of the Victorian era in a way that makes you feel you've been there. I cannot recommend it highly enough - Katie Fforde

Written with the delicate fluency of a storyteller utterly at ease with her craft' - Times Literary Supplement

This is the work of somebody profoundly connected to the countryside. The Mysteries of Glass casts its own spell, which is the essential requirement of a novel - Daily Telegraph

Author Bio

Sue Gee is an associate lecturer in Writing and Publishing Studies at Middlesex University. She lives in London with her Polish partner and their son.