The golden key

Title:

The golden key

Author:

Summary:

1901. After the death of Queen Victoria, England heaves with the uncanny. Seances are held and the dead are called upon from darker realms. Helena Walton-Cisneros, known for her ability to find the lost and the displaced, is hired by the elusive Lady Matthews to solve a twenty-year-old mystery: the disappearance of her three stepdaughters who vanished without a trace on the Norfolk Fens. But the Fens are an age-old land, where folk tales and dark magic still linger. The locals speak of devilmen and catatonic children are found on the Broads. Here, Helena finds what she was sent for, as the Fenland always gives up its secrets, in the end.

General Note:

Includes book club questions (page 321).

Edition:

First Titan edition.

Physical Description:

323 pages ; 21 cm

Genre:

Paranormal fiction.

Subject Term:

Spiritualists -- Fiction.

Magic -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

London (England) -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Titan Books,

Publication Date:

2020

ISBN:

9781789093254

Publication Information:

London : Titan Books, [2020]

Call Number:

WOMACK

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003494120	Adult Fiction	WOMACK Marian	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

"...Part Shirley Jackson's stories of inner demons, part Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...part Astrid Lindgren's faith in children's resilience and part ghost story."

"Enter a mysterious world in the hands of capable women. Getting drawn into this story is easy; getting out again is trickier."
-BookPage

1901. After the death of Queen Victoria, England heaves with the uncanny. Séances are held and the dead are called upon from darker realms.

Helena Walton-Cisneros, known for her ability to find the lost and the displaced, is hired by the elusive Lady Matthews to solve a twenty-year-old mystery: the disappearance of her three stepdaughters who vanished without a trace on the Norfolk Fens.

But the Fens are an age-old land, where folk tales and dark magic still linger. The locals speak of devilmen and catatonic children are found on the Broads. Here, Helena finds what she was sent for, as the Fenland always gives up its secrets, in the end...

Author Notes

Marian Womack , author of The Golden Key and The Swimmers, was born in Andalusia and educated in the UK. Her debut short story collection, Lost Objects (Luna Press, 2018) was shortlisted for two BSFA awards and one BFA award. She is a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop, and she holds degrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities. She writes at the intersection between weird and gothic fiction, and her stories normally deal with strange landscapes, ghostly encounters, or uncanny transformations. Marian lives in Cambridge, at the edge of the Fens, with her husband, their children and two aging Spanish cats. When she is not writing she can be found working as an academic librarian, or editing books and pamphlets in her indie publishing project, Calque Press.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Womack's ethereal debut novel (following 2018's short story collection Lost Objects) is precise and eerie, but emotionally flat. In the late-Victorian era, Samuel Moncrieff, a melancholy university student escaping a tragedy, the details of which remain murky, joins his godfather in London and falls in with a demimonde of actors and occultists. Meanwhile, Eliza Waltraud mourns her breakup with her "life companion," Mina, by retreating to a family property haunted by her mother in the strange stretch of English countryside called the Fens. Connecting Eliza and Samuel is respected medium and master of disguise Helena Walton-Cisneros, whose investigation into a 20-year-old disappearance in the Fens puts her on the trail of both Mina and Samuel. Plot and character alike are subordinated to dazzling atmospherics and a pervasive humorless gloom. With a slow, dreamlike pace, this could hardly be considered a page-turner, and readers looking for a more traditional supernatural detective story will be dissatisfied. Patient readers willing to wade through Womack's murky, off-kilter world will be rewarded with moments of disquieting beauty. Agent: Alexander Cochran, the C&W Agency. (Feb.)