Elijah's Mermaid

Essie Fox divides her time between Windsor and Bow in the East End of London. Her debut novel, The Somnambulist, was selected for the Channel 4 Book Club and was shortlisted in the New Writer of the Year category of the 2012 National Book Awards. She is the author of The Virtual Victorian: www.virtualvictorian.blogspot.com

Fox's vivid, sensual prose is - fittingly - as seductive as a siren's song, drawing you into a shadowy Victorian world of obsession and guilt... An intoxicating follow-up to 2011's acclaimed THE SOMNAMBULIST. Recommended to fans of Sarah Waters HEAT Fox's story of obsessive love is memorable and unusual SUNDAY TIMES The author behind the Virtual Victorian blog has followed up her Channel 4 Book Club choice THE SOMNAMBULIST with this Wilkie Collins-style sensation novel... An obvious comparison is with early Sarah Waters...The glee with which Fox approaches her material is infectious. All Victorian life is here ...Intriguing. GUARDIAN A fabulous foray into a shadowy Victorian world WOMAN AND HOME Vividly compelling, dark and dazzling Katherine Webb on THE SOMNAMBULIST Transports us to the Victorian squalor of London's East End for a tale of illegitimacy, incest and theatricality with so many twists that you'll want to read it in one sitting COSMOPOLITAN on the SOMNAMBULIST [THE SOMNAMBULIST] has taken me to new worlds, is riven with suspense, has made my imagination wander, and my fingers itch to turn the last page JoJo Moyes Expose[s] the mouldy underbelly of Victoriana... the effect can be deliciously unsettling. THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY Weaving an intoxicating tale that is both sinister and seductive as it depicts passion, betrayal and obsessive love in every guise, the novel certainly captures the less-palatable aspects of Victorian society with sensuous conviction GOOD BOOK GUIDE