My favourite jewel is the Koh-i-noor, a diamond said to blessed and cursed, and which also appears in the plot of my gothic novel, The Goddess and the Thief .
In the novel we see the diamond on display at the Great Exhibition of London, brought here as a part of a peace treaty at the end of the Second Anglo Sikh war when the boy maharajah, Duleep Singh, was deposed from his Punjabi throne.
Surrounded by myth and mystery, ancient legend has it that only a Queen may ever dare to hold the stone, with any man who does so being cursed with the threat that his family will die out and be lost forevermore. That curse came true for Duleep Singh who was brought to live in England where Queen Victoria adored him. But one day, when in Buckingham Palace having his portrait painted, Duleep was told to hold out his hands – into which the Queen placed the Koh-i-noor. No doubt she was only testing the Maharajah’s loyalty, but even though Duleep went on to marry, with several children, no grandchildren were ever born. So, his bloodline did indeed die out.
Ironically, Queen Victoria may well have received the stone’s blessing – with it being said that any Queen who owns the diamond may rule the world. She later became an Empress, ruling over the British Empire. To this very day, the stone is held along with the rest of our Queen’s Crown Jewels in the walls of the Tower of London.
A beguiling novel of Victorian theft and obsession from the bestselling author of THE SOMNAMBULIST.
Uprooted from her home in India, Alice is raised by her aunt, a spiritualist medium in Windsor. When the mysterious Mr Tilsbury enters their lives, Alice is drawn into a plot to steal the priceless Koh-i-Noor diamond, claimed by the British Empire at the end of the Anglo-Sikh wars.
Said to be both blessed and cursed, the sacred Indian stone exerts its power over all who encounter it: a handsome deposed maharajah determined to claim his rightful throne, a man hell-bent on discovering the secrets of eternity, and a widowed queen who hopes the jewel can draw her husband's spirit back. In the midst of all this madness, Alice must discover a way to regain control of her life and fate...
Dark secrets, hidden pasts and childhood mysteries are the focus in this sensual melodrama...an entertaining slice of Victoriana, rich in historical detail (MARIE CLAIRE)
A bewitching novel about an enigmatic silent film actress, and the volatile love affair that left her a recluse for over half a century - for fans of Sarah Waters and Tracy Chevalier. During the oppressive heat wave of 1976 a young journalist, Ed Peters, finds an Edwardian photograph in a junk shop in the seaside town of Brightland. It shows an alluring, dark-haired girl, an actress whose name was Leda Grey. Enchanted by the image, Ed learns Leda Grey is still living - now a recluse in a decaying cliff-top house she once shared with a man named Charles Beauvois, a director of early silent film. As Beauvois's muse and lover, Leda often starred in scenes where stage magic and trick photography were used to astonishing effect. But, while playing a cursed Egyptian queen, the fantasies captured on celluloid were echoed in reality, leaving Leda abandoned and alone for more than half a century - until the secrets of her past result in a shocking climax, more haunting than any to be in found in the silent films of Charles Beauvois.
Luminous … utterly beguiling ~ The Times, Historical Novel of the Month
The lovechild of Sarah Waters and Angela Carter ~ Monique Roffey,The Guardian
Deliciously unsettling ~ TheIndependent
A truly enchanting and magical book ~ Brighton and Hove Independent
Wonderfully atmospheric ~ Red Magazine
Magnificently conjured Hitchcockian atmosphere ~ Historia Magazine.
The exoticism … the smouldering kohl-eyed and chiffon-clad sensuality … the glee and the melodrama of these films. The intoxicating sense that everything is possible ~ Historical Novel Society
Fans of Daphne du Maurier will love this haunting, atmospheric novel ~ Jane Harris, author of The Observations, Gillespie and I, and Sugar Money.
Essie Fox was born and raised in Herefordshire. At Sheffield University she studied English Literature. She went on to work in newspaper and book publishing in London ~ followed by twenty years as a commercial artist.
Essie’s writing career began in 2011 when Orion Books published her Victorian gothic novel, The Somnambulist which was shortlisted for the UK National Book Awards, and featured on Channel 4’s TV Book Club. Elijah’s Mermaid, and The Goddess and the Thief are also Victorian novels, with The Last Days of Leda Grey, moving on into the Edwardian era, and the 1970’s.
