The Golden Key
Published on 18. February 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-78909-325-4 (ISBN)
Description
"...Part Shirley Jackson's stories of inner demons, part Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...part Astrid Lindgren's faith in children's resilience and part ghost story."
"Enter a mysterious world in the hands of capable women. Getting drawn into this story is easy; getting out again is trickier."
-BookPage
1901. After the death of Queen Victoria, England heaves with the uncanny. Seances are held and the dead are called upon from darker realms.
Helena Walton-Cisneros, known for her ability to find the lost and the displaced, is hired by the elusive Lady Matthews to solve a twenty-year-old mystery: the disappearance of her three stepdaughters who vanished without a trace on the Norfolk Fens.
But the Fens are an age-old land, where folk tales and dark magic still linger. The locals speak of devilmen and catatonic children are found on the Broads. Here, Helena finds what she was sent for, as the Fenland always gives up its secrets, in the end...
"Enter a mysterious world in the hands of capable women. Getting drawn into this story is easy; getting out again is trickier."
-BookPage
1901. After the death of Queen Victoria, England heaves with the uncanny. Seances are held and the dead are called upon from darker realms.
Helena Walton-Cisneros, known for her ability to find the lost and the displaced, is hired by the elusive Lady Matthews to solve a twenty-year-old mystery: the disappearance of her three stepdaughters who vanished without a trace on the Norfolk Fens.
But the Fens are an age-old land, where folk tales and dark magic still linger. The locals speak of devilmen and catatonic children are found on the Broads. Here, Helena finds what she was sent for, as the Fenland always gives up its secrets, in the end...
Reviews / Votes
"An intriguing and unsettling tale of seances, strange lights, disappearing children and a poacher who swears he has seen the devil in the marshes . . . Womack brings a great sense of the uncanny to the Fens." Alison Littlewood, author of A Cold SeasonMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
252 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78909-325-4 (9781789093254)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Marian Womack, author of "The Golden Key" and "The Swimmers", was born in Andalusia and educated in the UK. Her debut short story collection, "Lost Objects" (Luna Press, 2018) was shortlisted for two BSFA awards and one BFA award. She is a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop, and she holds degrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities. She writes at the intersection between weird and gothic fiction, and her stories normally deal with strange landscapes, ghostly encounters, or uncanny transformations. Marian lives in Cambridge, at the edge of the Fens, with her husband, their children and two aging Spanish cats. When she is not writing she can be found working as an academic librarian, or editing books and pamphlets in her indie publishing project, Calque Press.