A post-mortem photographer unearths dark secrets from the past that may hold the key to his future in this âsensual, twisting gothic taleâŚin the tradition of A.S. Byattâs Possession, Diane Setterfieldâs The Thirteenth Tale, and Emily Bronteâs Wuthering Heightsâ (BookPage).
All love stories are ghost stories in disguise. âThis one happily succeeds at bothâ (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
When famed Byronesque poet Hugh de Bonne is discovered dead in his bath one morning, his cousin Robert Highstead, a post-mortem photographer, is charged with a simple task: transport Hughâs remains for burial in a chapel. This chapel, a stained-glass folly set on the moors, was built by de Bonne sixteen years earlier to house the remains of his beloved wife and muse, Ada. Since then, the chapel has been locked and abandoned, a pilgrimage site for the rabid fans of de Bonneâs last book, The Lost History of Dreams.
However, Adaâs grief-stricken niece refuses to open the glass chapel for Robert unless he agrees to her bargain: before he can lay Hugh to rest, Robert must record Isabelleâs story of Ada and Hughâs ill-fated marriage over the course of five nights.
As the mystery of Ada and Hughâs relationship unfolds, so too does the secret behind Robertâs own marriageâincluding that of his fragile wife, Sida, who has not been the same since a tragic accident three years earlier and the origins of his morbid profession that has him seeing things he shouldnât...things from beyond the grave.
Blurring the line between the past and the present, truth and fiction, and ultimately, life and death, The Lost History of Dreams is âa surrealist, haunting tale of suspense where every prediction turns out to be merely a step toward a bigger revealâ (Booklist).