The Square of Sevens
The Times and Sunday Times Best Historical Fiction of the Year
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- €6.99
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- €6.99
Publisher Description
The Sunday Times Top Five Bestseller
A BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club Pick
A Guardian Best Crime and Thrillers of the Year Pick
'This rich, complex and haunting Dickensian epic is a triumph of the Gothic genre' — Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal
An epic and sweeping mystery set in Georgian high society, Laura Shepherd-Robinson's The Square of Sevens is a dazzling story offering up intrigue, heartbreak, and audacious twists.
This is your story, Red. You must tell it well . . .
A girl known only as Red, the daughter of a Cornish fortune-teller, travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient method: the Square of Sevens. When her father suddenly dies, Red becomes the ward of a gentleman scholar.
Now raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendour of Bath, her fortune-telling is a delight to high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him?
The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholomew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red's quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads her into grave danger . . .
'A wonderfully inventive novel' — The Times and Sunday Times, Best Historical Fiction of the Year
'A sweeping Dickensian tour de force of a novel' — Susan Stokes-Chapman, bestselling author of Pandora
'I doubt I’ll read a better book this year' — Chris Whitaker, bestselling author of We Begin at the End
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shepherd-Robinson (Daughters of Night) immerses readers in Georgian England, where a young fortune teller navigates a world leery of witchcraft and aims to uncover the truth about her deceased mother. Red learns the ancient art of the Square of Sevens, a form of cartomancy, from her father. After her father dies, she is taken in by his recent acquaintance Mr. Antrobus, who has a secret connection to Red's mother. Red's quest for answers about her mother's true identity, and why her father was convinced her mother's family was a danger to her takes her from Cornwall and Bath to the back alleys of London, where she tells fortunes at the chaotic Bartholomew Fair and becomes embroiled in a legal battle between Lords Seabrooke and De Lacy involving lost wills and last-minute codicils. Shepherd-Robinson presents perennial themes of truth and lies, love and loyalty, and chance and fate, sprinkling the narrative with historical figures (Robert Walpole is described as a "wretched inconvenience," and Red studies the experiments of Brazilian-born naturalist and inventor Bartolomeu Lourenco de Gusmão) and literary references, from Cervantes's Don Quixote, to the words of Seneca and more. This is a captivatingly complex tale of intrigue set in a world hesitantly blundering its way to being post-Newtonian.
