There are phrases and scenes in the book written with such skill and care and trickery as to make any reader follow it with a great unease . . . It is a very frightening story Colm Tóibín Guardian
Henry James was born in New York in 1843, the younger brother of the philosopher William James, and was educated in Europe and America. He left Harvard Law School in 1863, after a year's attendance, to concentrate on writing, and from 1869 he began to make prolonged visits to Europe, eventually settling in England in 1876. His literary output was both prodigious and of the highest quality: more than ten outstanding novels including his masterpiece, The Portrait of a Lady; countless novellas and short stories; as well as innumerable essays, letters, and other pieces of critical prose. Known by contemporary fellow novelists as 'the Master', James died in Kensington, London, in 1916.
Kate Mosse is an award-winning novelist, playwright, essayist and non-fiction writer, the author of nine novels and short-story collections, including the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy, The Burning Chambers Series, number one bestselling Gothic fiction The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist's Daughter and the highly-acclaimed memoir An Extra Pair of Hands. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and published in more than forty countries. The Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Fiction, she is the Founder of the global #WomanInHistory campaign. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Kate is a Visiting Professor of Contemporary Fiction and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester.