It’s 1883 and Pearl Greyland-Smith—a smart, stubborn, and forthright child—lives in Victoria where she exasperates her widowed mother, Florence, aggravates their theosophist housemaid, Carpy, and longs for her father, a hussar who died in Afghanistan.
While their lives are lacking in certain amenities, Pearl and Florence’s days are anything but dull, populated by characters easily at home in a Dickens novel: the earnest and enigmatic amateur scientist Charles Gloster, celebrated inspector Osmo Beattie, and imperialist newspaper columnist Harry Hearne. But when an Irish woman named Cassidy arrives at their door hinting at a scandal in Florence’s past, Pearl begins to wonder what other secrets her mother has been keeping. And then a fateful encounter at a solstice fête throws Pearl’s whole future into question.
This delightful coming-of-age story, imbued with the Victorian fascination for auras and the afterlife, will appeal to readers of Patrick deWitt and Eleanor Catton. Once again Grant Buday has turned distant West Coast history upside down and created a vivid world intimately relevant to us today.
praise for grant buday’s orphans of empire
“Meticulously researched and vividly drawn . . . an immersive, shimmering novel.”
—steven price, author of By Gaslight and Lampedusa
“Read if you’re a Hilary Mantel or Guy Vanderhaeghe fan.”
—Broken Pencil
An imprint of TouchWood Editions
Cover design by Jazmin Welch