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Title details for Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott - Available

Ghostwalk

by Rebecca Stott
Rosalyn Landor
Audiobook
4 of 4 copies available
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4 of 4 copies available
A Cambridge historian, Elizabeth Vogelsang, is found drowned, clutching a glass prism in her hand. The book she was writing about Isaac Newton’s involvement with alchemy–the culmination of her lifelong obsession with the seventeenth century–remains unfinished. When her son, Cameron, asks his former lover, Lydia Brooke, to ghostwrite the missing final chapters of his mother’s book, Lydia agrees and moves into Elizabeth’s house–a studio in an orchard where the light moves restlessly across the walls. Soon Lydia discovers that the shadow of violence that has fallen across present-day Cambridge, which escalates to a series of murders, may have its origins in the troubling evidence that Elizabeth’s research has unearthed. As Lydia becomes ensnared in a dangerous conspiracy that reawakens ghosts of the past, the seventeenth century slowly seeps into the twenty-first, with the city of Cambridge the bridge between them.
Filled with evocative descriptions of Cambridge, past and present, Ghostwalk centers around a real historical mystery that Rebecca Stott has uncovered involving Newton’s alchemy. In it, time and relationships are entangled–the present with the seventeenth century, and figures from the past with the love-torn twenty-first-century woman who is trying to discover their secrets.
A stunningly original display of scholarship and imagination, and a gripping story of desire and obsession, Ghostwalk is a rare debut that will change the way most of us think about scientific innovation, the force of history, and time itself.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 8, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415938645
      • File size: 336569 KB
      • Duration: 11:41:11

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Like so many good mysteries, this audiobook creates a tangle of characters and conflicts and asks the listener to pull strings until it all unravels to reveal a solution. The story in GHOSTWALK involves historical fact--Isaac Newton's interest in alchemy--and adds complicated characters and modern-day intrigue. When Lydia Brooke is asked to ghostwrite the final chapters of a Cambridge University historian's book on Newton, she becomes involved in a conspiracy that involves the past and the present. Rosalyn Landor performs with terse precision. Her lovely British accent suits the setting of the novel, although a clearer distinction between characters' voices would help listeners trying to keep up with the brisk pace. This audiobook keeps one engaged until the last string is untied. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 26, 2007
      British historian Stott makes a stunning debut with this hypnotic and intelligent thriller, the first fiction release of a new Random House imprint. The mysterious drowning death of Elizabeth Vogelsang, a Cambridge University scholar who was almost finished writing a controversial biography of Isaac Newton, leads her son, Cameron Brown, to recruit Lydia Brooke, his former lover, to complete the book. That request plunges Brooke into probing two ostensibly separate series of murders: one in the 17th century claimed the lives of several who stood between Newton and the fellowship he needed to continue his studies at Cambridge; the other in the present day appears to target those who have offended a radical animal rights group. Brooke's work may be haunted by a ghost from Newton's time who guides her to a radical reinterpretation of the role of alchemy and the supernatural in Newton's life. Much more than a clever whodunit, this taut, atmospheric novel with its twisty interconnections between past and present will leave readers hoping Stott has many more stories in her future.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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