"A dark alchemy slices into this action-packed and original historical adventure set in 1597 with devastating results, ensuring it sits as a LoveReading Star Book. "
Well now, this originally stimulating novel is rather fabulous! Elizabethan England is brought to vividly adventurous life while delving into the darker side of alchemy. Kit and Mariner find their life as part of a gang is obliterated when a grave robbery goes horribly wrong. Author Emma Hinds has created an atmospherically intense and wonderfully suspenseful read. I found myself immersed in both the time and place, it all felt incredibly real which made the elements of alchemy roar with fierce potency. I loved how the fanatical twisted within historical facts of this strange craft and it was fascinating to hear in the Author’s Note about some of the truths embedded within that were most definitely stranger than fiction! The characters are vibrantly colourful, with each and every one striding onto the page with empathic energy. I was fascinated by the weaving plot, unexpected elements hit with a punch and I loved being kept in suspense. While this is most definitely a powerhouse read, the nature of friendship and family is explored with beautiful compassion and therefore it sits as both a LoveReading Star Book and Liz Pick of the Month. The Quick and The Dead sings with a raucous power while touching emotions and encouraging thoughts to flow. Highly recommended.
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'Wonderfully evocative, this book transports the reader to the dark underworld of late Elizabethan London. I was gripped from the first page.' Tracy Borman
It is 1597 and Kit Skevy and Mariner Elgin have just robbed the wrong grave.
They are young criminals in the pocket of a gang Lord named Will Twentyman, the Grave Eorl of Southwark. Mariner is the best cutpurse around, a strange Calvinist girl who dresses like a boy and is partner in crime to Kit Skevy, Southwark's best brawler who carries a secret: he cannot feel pain.
When caught out in their unfortunate larceny, Kit is kidnapped by the menacing alchemist Lord Isherwood (a man who will stop at nothing to achieve his hopes for the Red Lion elixir) and his studious son, Lazarus Isherwood, with whom Kit develops a complicated intrigue. When Mariner enlists the help of a competing French alchemist, Lady Elody Blackwater, Mariner and Kit are thrust into the shadowed, political world of Tudor alchemy, testing both their friendship and their lives.
It matters not who you are born to... but where you are made!
The Quick and the Dead features in the following genres: Books of the Month, Liz Robinson's Picks of the Month, Star Books, Classic fiction: general and literary, Historical Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Magic, alchemy and hermetic thought, Metaphysical / philosophical fiction, Historical crime and mysteries, Historical adventure fiction, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Philosophy and Religion, Religion and beliefs, Alternative belief systems, Occult studies, Magic, alchemy and hermetic thought
The Quick and the Dead is available in Paperback, Hardback, Ebook (Epub)
The Quick and the Dead was written by Emma Hinds and published by Bedford Square Publishers
The Quick and the Dead has 304 pages
£15.29
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