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"A blistering historical thriller." -- Entertainment Weekly

A servant and former slave is accused of murdering her employer and his wife in this breathtaking debut that moves from a Jamaican sugar plantation to the fetid streets of Georgian London--a gripping historical thriller with echoes of Alias Grace, The Underground Railroad, and The Paying Guests.

All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being tried at the Old Bailey.

The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator, a whore.

But Frannie claims she cannot recall what happened that fateful evening, even if remembering could save her life. She doesn't know how she came to be covered in the victims' blood. But she does have a tale to tell: a story of her childhood on a Jamaican plantation, her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist who stretched all bounds of ethics, and the events that brought her into the Benhams' London home--and into a passionate and forbidden relationship.

Though her testimony may seal her conviction, the truth will unmask the perpetrators of crimes far beyond murder and indict the whole of English society itself.

A brilliant, searing depiction of race, class, and oppression that penetrates the skin and sears the soul, it is the story of a woman of her own making in a world that would see her unmade.

Author: Sara Collins
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper
Published: 05/21/2019
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.1lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.40w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9780062851895


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 12/01/2018 pg. 47
Booklist 03/01/2019 pg. 35
Kirkus Reviews 03/01/2019 pg. 10
Publishers Weekly 03/25/2019
Library Journal 05/01/2019 pg. 84
BookPage 06/01/2019

About the Author
Collins, Sara: -

Sara Collins is of Jamaican descent and grew up in Grand Cayman and studied law at the London School of Economics and worked as a lawyer for seventeen years before doing a Master of Studies in Creative Writing at Cambridge University, where she was the recipient of the 2015 Michael Holroyd Prize for Creative Writing. Twitter: @mrsjaneymac