'A small Gothic masterpiece... I have read it many times, and with every re-read I marvel again at its many qualities - its darkness, its strangeness, its humour, its sadness, its startling images and twists of phrase' - Sarah Waters.Growing up in Edwardian south London, Alice Rowlands longs for romance and excitement, for a release from a life that is dreary and lonely. Her father, a vet, is harsh and oppressive; his new girlfriend, brash and lascivious.Her own mother once told her: “It's sour, the soil in London, and so is the life I've led.”... that was, before she left this world with broken teeth and broken heart in misery.Alice seeks refuge in fantasy, in her rapturous longing for Nicholas, a handsome young sailor, and in the blossoming of what she perceives as her occult powers.Harrowing and haunting, depressing in large scale, a Gothic tale that is a strange cross between Daphne Du Maurier and Stephen King, but will also intrigue readers of Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Diane Setterfield.