The Glass of Time

The Glass of Time

Published:
2011-05-18
Categories:
ISBN:
9781551993843
Meeting:
FBC Recommended R2.073
File size (e-book):
2.4 MB
Download URL:
Book Availability:
available
Pre Order Availability:
no
Accessibility Features:
enabled

Description:

A page-turning late-Victorian mystery by a master, The Glass of Time is for fans of The Meaning of Night and for readers new to Michael Cox alike.

Picking up the lives of characters from the first novel some twenty years later, The Glass of Time begins in 1876.  Nineteen-year-old orphan Esperanza Gorst arrives from Paris at the great country house of Evenwood to become lady’s maid to the 26th Baroness Tansor, the former Miss Emily Carteret.  But Esperanza is no ordinary servant.  She has been sent by her guardian, the mysterious “Madame,” to uncover the secrets that her new mistress has concealed for decades, and to set right a past injustice which — although Esperanza does not know it — is intimately linked with her own future as well as her past.

Gradually, those secrets are revealed, and with them the true identities of nearly every character — for it seems that no one in Esperanza’s world is who she believes them to be.  She finds herself enmeshed in a complicated web of intrigue, deceit, and murder that culminates in a devastating betrayal by those she trusted most.

Richly textured and elegantly told, The Glass of Time is a completely enveloping tale of identity, of the unexpected consequences of hidden truths, and of what can happen when past obsessions impose themselves on an unwilling present.

Author Details:

Michael Cox was born in Northamptonshire in 1948. After graduating from Cambridge in 1971, he went into the music business as a singer/songwriter (under the name Matthew Ellis) before taking a job in publishing with Thorsons Publishing Group in 1977. His first book, published in 1983, was a widely praised biography of the scholar and ghost-story writer M.R. James. He then joined Oxford University Press as an editor, where he edited many literary anthologies, including The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories and The Oxford Book of Victorian Detective Stories. His first novel, The Meaning of Night, was written as he was losing his sight to cancer; the book became a critical success and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. The Glass of Time, a sequel to The Meaning of Night was published in 2008. Michael Cox died of a rare vascular cancer, in March 2009, at the age of 60.