"DeLuca keeps readers guessing. Minette Walters fans will be pleased."
(Publishers Weekly, starred review)
Perfect for fans of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Hannah Kent's
Burial Rites, this taut psychological thriller offers a delicious take
on deviant and defiant Victorian women in a time when marriage itself
was its own prison.
England, 1873. Clara Blackstone has just been released after one year in
a private asylum for the insane. Clara has two goals: to reunite with
her husband, Henry, and to never - ever - return to the asylum. As she
enters Durham, Clara finds her carriage surrounded by a mob gathered to
witness the imprisonment of Mary Ann Cotton - England's first female
serial killer - accused of poisoning nearly 20 people, including her
husbands and children.