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Shadowplay

Shadowplay

Summary

Discover the enthralling Richard & Judy Book Club pick from international bestseller Joseph O'Connor.

'The best novel that I've read in the last twenty years... It's fantastic' RICHARD MADELEY

'Breathtaking... A hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love' Sadie Jones, Guardian

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London, 1878. Three extraordinary people begin their life together - and the idea for Dracula is born.

Fresh from life in Dublin, Bram Stoker - now manager of the Lyceum Theatre - is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration. Soon, the eerie tale of Dracula begins to emerge.

But Henry Irving, volcanic leading man and impresario, is determined that nothing will get in the way of Bram's dedication to the Lyceum. And both men are growing ever more enchanted by the beauty and boldness of Ellen Terry, the most celebrated actress of her generation.
__________

Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2019
Winner of the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year


'A colourful tale of secret love and public performance...in a romantic, lost London' The Times

'Hugely entertaining and atmospheric' DEBORAH MOGGACH

'Extraordinary' SEBASTIAN BARRY

'A novel I'd recommend to anyone: a rollicking and moving story' James Naughtie, Radio Times

'Fabulous... A truly great book you simply cannot put down' JUDY FINNIGAN

'Rich, sad, funny, and a beautiful read. You'll LOVE it' RICHARD MADELEY

'Ingenious...hugely impressive and utterly haunting' Sunday Mirror


*JOSEPH O'CONNOR'S STUNNING NEW NOVEL, MY FATHER'S HOUSE, IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW*

Reviews

  • Dazzling...the panache and subtlety of his prose perfectly match that gusto and creative finesse of the High Victorian world his novel wonderfully evokes
    Sunday Times

About the author

Joseph O'Connor

Joseph O’Connor’s fiction has been published in forty languages. His twenty books include eleven novels, among them the million-selling Star of the Sea, Ghost Light, Shadowplay and My Father’s House, a Washington Post Book of the Year. His work has been shortlisted for the LA Times Book Award, twice for the Whitbread/Costa and twice for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and has won the Nielsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi and Premio Napoli, an American Library Association Award, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the Hennessy Writer of the Year and Hall of Fame Awards, the Eason / An Post Novel of the Year Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Prix Madeline Zepter for European Novel of the Year. He is Frank McCourt Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.


www.josephoconnorauthor.com
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