Twisted Heart
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Kit, a work-obsessed literature student, decides on a whim to go to a dance class. And for a while it looks as if Joe, the shadowy figure she meets there, may tempt her to put her books aside and live a little. But as Joe’s world becomes increasingly threatening and Kit’s research leads her to stumble on a complex historical mystery, she is faced with a choice. should she hide away in her studies or make a leap of faith that could change her existence forever?
The Twisted Heart is both a hugely enjoyable novel about the challenges of love and a startling exploration of previously unrecognized links between the young Charles Dickens and the deranged murder of a prostitute known as The Countess. Brilliantly weaving these threads together, The Twisted Heart confirms Gowers as one of the most exciting writers in Britain today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The gifts Gowers displayed in her true crime book, The Swamp of Death, aren't evident in this middling novel, which reads more like a lesser version of A.S. Byatt's Possession than Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, the book's inspiration, according to the author's postscript. Kit Farr, a present-day Oxford graduate student, stumbles on reports of a real-life murder case the unsolved butchery of Eliza Grimwood, a London prostitute, in 1838, a half-century before the Ripper crimes. Kit, who believes the killing may have been inspired by Bill Sikes's murder of Nancy in Dickens's Oliver Twist, enlists a new love-interest, mathematics lecturer Joe Leppard, in her researches. but the Grimwood case takes a backseat to Kit and Joe's budding relationship. That Kit makes a major mistake in her thesis doesn't reinforce her credentials as a sleuth. Romance readers will be more satisfied than mystery fans.
