**From the internationally bestselling author of The Essex
Serpent--soon to be an Apple TV+ Series
"Masterful...scary and smart, working as a horror story but also a
philosophical inquiry into the nature of will and love. Perry did as
much in her richly praised novel The Essex Serpent, but this is a
deeper, more complex novel and more rewarding."--The Washington Post
In Melmoth, Sarah Perry's breathtaking follow-up to The Essex
Serpent, a mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe for
centuries, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed
into the rapids of history's darkest waters--and now, it is heading in
our direction.
It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working
as a translator, she has found a home of sorts--or, at least, refuge.
That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the
library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of
Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and
antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels
through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation
of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of
unenlightened fantasy.
But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being
watched. And then Karel disappears....
