The Maker of Swans
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3.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER
A CrimeReads & Book and Film Globe BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A Tor.com BEST BOOK OF JUNE
“Truly bewitching.” —David Mitchell
It is no small matter, after all, to create something—to make it so only by setting down the words. We forget the magnitude, sometimes, of that miracle.
In the dead of night, shots ring out over the grounds of a sprawling English estate. The world-weary butler Eustace recognizes the gunman—his longtime employer, Mr. Crowe—and knows he must think and act quickly. Who is the man lying dead on the lawn? Who is the woman in his company? Can he clean up his master’s mess like he always has before? Or will this bring a new kind of reckoning?
Mr. Crowe was once famed for his gifts—unaccountable gifts, known only to the members of a secretive order. Protected and privileged, he was courted by countesses and great men of letters. But he has long since retreated from that glittering world, living alone but for Eustace and Clara, his mysterious young ward. He has been content to live quietly, his great library gathering dust and his once magnificent gardens growing wild. He has left the past behind. Until now.
Because there are rules, even for Mr. Crowe and his kind, that cannot be broken. And this single night of passion and violence will have consequences, stirring shadows from the past and threatening those he now cares for. He and the faithful Eustace will be tested as never before. So too will Clara, whose own extraordinary gifts remain hidden, even from herself. If she is to save them all, she must learn to use them quickly and unlock the secret of who she is.
It is a secret beyond imagining. A secret that will change everything.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Donnell (The House on Vesper Sands) delivers an ornate if uneven post-WWII gothic story. Eustace, longtime butler at Mr. Crowe's large country estate, is awakened one night by gunshots. From his window, he sees Crowe with two pistols, as well as a strange woman and an unfamiliar bearded man, who slaps the woman before Crowe leaps on him. By the time Eustace arrives on the scene, the man, later identified as poet David Landor, is dead, and the imperturbable servant immediately takes steps to cover up the apparent murder, calmly concealing the corpse in Landor's own car trunk before calling in a favor. O'Donnell gradually ladles out a series of revelations, for example that Crowe belongs to an ancient secret order of artists. Landor was also a member, and Eustace fears his demise will bring the wrath of the order's mysterious leader onto Crowe. Eustace's efforts to intervene in Crowe's fate alternate with sections featuring Crowe's unusual mute ward, Clara, who is placed in jeopardy by her guardian's actions. While the prose is occasionally memorable (Clara touches a cygnet's neck, the softness of which is "barely palpable, like the weightless glancing of dandelion seeds"), the plot never coheres. It's a beautiful jewel box, but what's inside is a letdown.
