A Secret Alchemy

(Hardback)

Available Formats

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Two murdered princes; a powerful queen betrayed; a nobleman riding towards his certain death Everyone thinks they know about the Princes in the Tower: one of the most fascinating, and most brutal, murder mysteries in British history. But the real story of the suspicious deaths of the young Edward V and his brother, and the involvement of the man who would become Richard III, remains unknown, over five hundred years since the boys were taken from their mother, Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV.

Now, in a brilliant feat of historical daring, Emma Darwin has recreated their world and their terrible, exhilarating story: the power struggles and passion that lay behind their birth; the danger into which they fell; the profoundly moving days before their imprisonment; and the betrayal of innocence.

Reviews

Praise for The Mathematics of Love: 'This is that rare thing, a book that works on every conceivable level... an uncommonly good read...remarkable...this is a novel of extremes: there is suffering, violent and disturbing portraits of war and of personal loss; but equally extreme moments of joy and human undertanding. At its core are the emotions that most shape us - love and loss...[Emma Darwin] builds layer upon layer of emotion and history until, like a photographic print emerging from its chemical bath, the final picture is revealed...A real achievement' - The Times

'Fascinating . If you're in a book club torn between lovers of 19th-century and modern fiction, The Mathematics of Love may be just the thing to square the circle... hauntingly beautiful' - Washington Post

'Convincing and involving...a book to lose yourself in' - Daily Mail

'A beautifully written, intelligent book...as historically graphic and passionately romantic as Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong' - Waterstone's Books Quarterly

'A daring debut novel...Emma Darwin's prose is golden and convincing. Addictive' - Daily Express

'The reader is spellbound...electrifying...magical' - Independent

'This sweeping tale of nineteenth-century war and courtship and twentieth-century teenage rebellion has a real flavour of its own that will grip you to the end...an accomplished, vividly realised

Author Bio

Emma Darwin was born in 1964 and brought up in London, Manhattan and Brussels. Her first novel, The Mathematics of Love", was widely acclaimed; A Secret Alchemy" is her second.