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The Quick

byLauren Owen

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The Quick is a neo-Victorian Gothic novel by Lauren Owen about orphaned siblings James and Charlotte, a secretive London club and a hidden supernatural world, ideal for readers who enjoy atmospheric historical horror, multiple perspectives and gradual-building suspense.

Synopsis
You are about to discover the secrets of The Quick –

But first, reader, you must travel to Victorian England, and there, in the wilds of Yorkshire, meet a brother and sister alone in the world, a pair bound by tragedy. You will, in time, enter the rooms of London’s mysterious Aegolius Club – a society of the richest, most powerful men in England. And at some point – we cannot say when – these worlds will collide.

It is then, and only then, that a new world emerges, a world of romance, adventure and the most delicious of horrors – and the secrets of The Quick are revealed.


Perfect for readers who like...
  • Atmospheric Victorian Gothic fiction set between Yorkshire and London.
  • Secret societies and hidden supernatural worlds.
  • Journal or diary entries.

Books like The Quick
  • The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
  • Nephthys by Rachel Louise Driscoll
  • The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G. W. Dahlquist

Themes and story elements
  • Secret society
  • Sibling relationship
  • Hidden supernatural world

A sly and glittering addition to the literature of the macabre . . . As soon as you have breathed with relief, much worse horrors begin. It's a skilled, assured performance, and it's hard to believe it is a first novel.

HILARY MANTEL

About Lauren Owen

Lauren Owen is twenty-eight years old and grew up in the grounds of a boarding school in Yorkshire. Her first attempts at writing as a teenager were Harry Potter fan fiction. She is a graduate of St Hilda's, Oxford, holds an MA in Victorian Literature, is completing a PhD on Gothic writing and fan culture, and is the recipient of the UEA creative-writing programme's prestigious Curtis Brown Prize. The Quick is her first novel.
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Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781446485415
  • Length: 528 pages
  • Price: £4.99
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