"I was genuinely sorry to finish this book. It had me completely
engaged... and I loved the clever surprise in the middle of it."
Louis de Bernieres, author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin
In 1820 London, landscape artist William Daniell hires Jesse Cloud, a
homeless teenager, to be his apprentice. But all is not as it seems.
Both William and his prentice must make their own inner journeys to
expose others' betrayals and explore their own possibilities. Faced with
bankruptcy, starvation looms. Friendships fragment. The artist must
learn how to see and his prentice must learn how to survive - while the
truth shatters all.
The powerlessness of the poor and women's suffrage are a constant
presence tainting the air. This troubled period of change and division
provides a vivid sense of time and place.
William's casual assumptions about the poor in society and about women
in particular challenges his very identity. An accident-prone venture to
remote East Anglian shores becomes a journey of revelation and
self-discovery as long-hidden truths about their backgrounds begin to
unravel, and the secretive nature of the prentice-boy gains sudden
significance.
William's camera obscura captures an insecure society of inequality and
flux. Two centuries later it is uncannily familiar and resonates deeply.
