Booker-nominated and short-listed for the Authors’ Club First Novel Award.
In the golden summer of 1924 Paul Asher, still shattered by the trauma of the First World War, comes to Farundell, an idyllic country house set deep in the Oxfordshire countryside. There, he falls under the spell of the rich and eccentric Damory family: the celebrated Amazon explorer Perceval, Lord Damory, now blind and dying, whose story echoes Paul’s own strange dreams, brilliant thirteen-year-old Alice, on the cusp of adulthood and, like Paul, a seeker of knowledge and, most fatefully, the wild and beautiful Sylvie, with whom he falls passionately in love. Before summer’s end, there will be tragedy, comedy, resolution and, for Paul, a revelation that will change his life forever
Farundell is a story of magical awakening as a young man searches for meaning in the aftermath of the First World War, a young girl comes of age and an old man journeys through memory to death. There’s an enigmatic book, an erotic obsession, magic both black and white, a ghost who’s not a ghost, a murder that’s not a murder, a treasure that’s not a treasure. It’s about love, loss and longing; language, imagination and the nature of reality. A stunningly original debut novel, Farundell is literary fiction with a metaphysical twist.
Although complete in itself, Farundell is the first in the TIME AND LIGHT series of novels about these people, places and themes.
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