Lauren Owen

SMALL ANGELS updates the classic ghost story for the 21st century: a wedding in a Suffolk village sees the woods begin to stir with an unsеttling magic, and forces a troubled family´s secrets out into the open. ´A twisting gothic tale of darkness, intrigue, heartbreak and revenge... gorgeously atmospheric and gripping!´ Jennifer Saint, author of ARIADNE When Chloe turns the key to Small Angels, the church nestled at the edge of Mockbeggar Woods where she is to be married, she is braced for cobwebs and dust. What she doesn´t expect are the villagers´ concerned faces, her fiance´s remoteness, or the nagging voice in her head that whispers to her of fears she didn´t even know she had. Something in the woods is beginning to stir, to creep closer to the sleeping houses. Something that should have been banished long ago. Whatever it is, it´s getting stronger, and pretending it´s not there won´t keep the wedding, or the village - or Chloe - safe.

For fans of Anne Rice, The Historian, and The Night Circus, an astonishing debut, a novel of epic scope and suspense that conjures up all the magic and menace of Victorian London  1892: James Norbury, a shy would-be poet newly down from Oxford, finds lodging with a charming young aristocrat. Through this new friendship, he is introduced to the drawing-rooms of high society and finds love in an unexpected quarter. Then, suddenly, he vanishes without a trace. Alarmed, his sister, Charlotte, sets out from their crumbling country estate determined to find him. In the sinister, labyrinthine London that greets her, she uncovers a hidden, supernatural city populated by unforgettable characters: a female rope walker turned vigilante, a street urchin with a deadly secret, and the chilling “Doctor Knife.” But the answer to her brother’s disappearance ultimately lies within the doors of the exclusive, secretive Aegolius Club, whose predatory members include the most ambitious, and most bloodthirsty, men in England.   In her first novel, Lauren Owen has created a fantastical world that is both beguiling and terrifying. The Quick will establish her as one of fiction’s most dazzling talents.  From the Hardcover edition.