'Lush, gritty, wry, gothic and compulsive' Emma Donoghue

'Spectacular' Natasha Pulley

'A moving, beguiling, gorgeously-written book' Kate Riordan

'A star in the making' Sunday Times

'Recalls the best of Sarah Waters' E C Fremantle

'Extraordinary' Cathy Rentzenbrink

1826, and all of London is in a frenzy. Crowds gather at the gates of the Old Bailey to watch as Frannie Langton, maid to Mr and Mrs Benham, goes on trial for their murder. The testimonies against her are damning - slave, whore, seductress. And they may be the truth. But they are not the whole truth.

For the first time Frannie must tell her story. It begins with a girl learning to read on a plantation in Jamaica, and it ends in a grand house in London, where a beautiful woman waits to be freed.

But through her fevered confessions, one burning question haunts Frannie Langton: could she have murdered the only person she ever loved?

'A book of heart, soul and guts' Elizabeth Day

'Dazzlingly original' The Times

'Bold and powerful' Sunday Times

'Gothic writing at its very best' Christine Mangan, author of Tangerine

'It resonates long after the final page has been turned' Laura Carlin, the author of The Wicked Cometh

'Gothic fiction made brand new' Stef Penney, author of The Tenderness of Wolves

'Tender and furious and wholly deserving of attention' Jessie Greengrass, author of Sight

'A pitch-perfect gothic novel' Kate Riordan, author of The Girl in the Photograph

'A glory of a book' Stephanie Butland, author of Letters to my Husband

'A literary page-turner' Rebecca F. John, author of The Haunting of Henry Twist