Palace of Shadows

<p><b>An outstanding historical novel for fans of <i>The Essex Serpent </i>and <i>Piranesi, </i>Ray Celestin's <i>Palace of Shadows</i> can lay claim to having at its centre the most Gothic House of them all . . .</b><br><br><i>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not asking you to build something impossible. I&rsquo;m asking you to build something that contains all the strangeness and confusion that you can muster.&rdquo;</i><br><br>Samuel Etherstone, a penniless artist, is adrift in London. His disturbing art is shunned by patrons and critics alike, his friend Oscar Wilde is now an exile living in Paris, and a personal tragedy has taken its toll. So when he is contacted by a mysterious heiress, Mrs Chesterfield, and asked to work on a commission for the house she is building on the desolate Smugglers' Coast of North Yorkshire, he accepts the offer.<br><br>Staying overnight in the