Synopses & Reviews
It begins with a shocking act of violence. On a humid, thundery afternoon, Laura Blundy murders the man who saved her life. He is her husband, but she has a lover. Fifteen years her junior, already the father of five, Billy is a laborer-one of thousands of faceless men installing the sewers in the city of London in the mid-1800s. He is the only passion Laura has ever known, and so she pursues her obsessive dream of their life together to its dire extremes...
Review
"Gripping....[T]he contact between the emotional and spiritual remains prominent in this tense and often creepy story." The Washington Post Book World
Review
"Victorian in its drizzly London setting and rush of improbable coincidences, Laura Blundy will keep readers riveted to its pages, as Julie Myerson layers the suspense in this tale of love and betrayal. At once a thriller, love story, and ghost tale, [it] defies easy categorization. But the voice of its narrator, Laura Blundy herself, maintains the novels haunting unity...[she is a] beguiling and tormented character....Myersons portrait of Laura brims with surprises, revealing a woman who manages to keep the core of herself in some way intact despite her many extreme misfortunes....Myersons finest accomplishment in the novel arrives from her nuanced portrait of its eerily compelling protagonist. In the end, readers may question whether the tale can contain all the strangeness that it has brought together, yet the journey to its conclusion provides more than enough insight and excitement to get us there." The Los Angeles Times
Review
"Laura Blundy is the mesmerizing exploration of a lost soul, a journal of obsessive love and a haunting, harrowing tale...an unforgettable story propelled by currents of foreboding and delivered with sinister, stunning panache. Myerson knows how to weave a spell, and she weaves it mightily well." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Review
"A great, grisly pleasure....Lauras haunting story veers lucidly and frighteningly from disaster to disaster, but [her] grim life never feels piteous. Rather, amoral Laura is an exciting, ribald figure who, with wild hair, missing teeth, itchy stump, and decidedly unromantic outlook, is a refreshing break from typical down-on-their luck historic heroines....Myerson is crafty and unsparing with her words; the pages jump with a lively expressiveness that delivers a tremendous kick." Publishers Weekly
Review
"The labors of love take on new meaning here...hypnotic." Kirkus Reviews
Review
One of the strangest, most compelling novels this year. (The Guardian, London)
Synopsis
On a humid, thundery afternoon, Laura Blundy murders the man who saved her life. He is her husband, but she has a lover: one of thousands of faceless men installing the sewers in the city of London in the mid-1800s. He is the only passion Laura has ever known, and so she pursues her obsessive dream of their life together to its dire extremes.