The Last Days of Leda Grey

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What to expect

A bewitching novel about an enigmatic silent film actress, and the volatile love affair that left her a recluse for over half a century - for fans of Sarah Waters and Tracy Chevalier.

During the oppressive heat wave of 1976 a young journalist, Ed Peters, finds an Edwardian photograph in a junk shop in the seaside town of Brightland. It shows an alluring, dark-haired girl, an actress whose name was Leda Grey.

Enchanted by the image, Ed learns Leda Grey is still living - now a recluse in a decaying cliff-top house she once shared with a man named Charles Beauvois, a director of early silent film. As Beauvois's muse and lover, Leda often starred in scenes where stage magic and trick photography were used to astonishing effect.

But, while playing a cursed Egyptian queen, the fantasies captured on celluloid were echoed in reality, leaving Leda abandoned and alone for more than half a century - until the secrets of her past result in a shocking climax, more haunting than any to be in found in the silent films of Charles Beauvois.

(p) 2016 Orion Publishing Group

Critics Review

A richly evocative story, brimming with intrigue and suspense
M. L. Stedman, author of THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS
Leda Grey's world is utterly beguiling
THE TIMES
Dark, haunting, compelling... equal to DuMaurier's novels - this book held me in its grip. Loved it.
Liz Fenwick, author of The Cornish House
Macabre, transporting, thick with atmosphere and allusion
Morgan McCarthy, author of The Other Half Of Me
Darkly sparkling. Very much enjoyed my days in Leda's twilight world. Doubt I'll sleep all that well tonight...
Anna Mazzola, author of The Unseeing
Shades of Sunset Boulevard in this atmospheric chiller
WOMAN&HOME
A wonderfully creepy tale. Leda is a triumph
Vanessa Lafaye, author of Summertime
An obvious comparison is with early Sarah Waters. The glee with which Fox approaches her material is infectious. All Victorian life is here. Intriguing
THE GUARDIAN
A deliciously eerie affair... A story of obsession, jealousy, mysterious deaths and theatrically supernatural goings-on as very strange truths are tantalisingly revealed
SUNDAY EXPRESS
Fox's tale of obsessive love is memorable and unusual
THE SUNDAY TIMES
A richly textured, highly coloured and entirely pleasurable read
METRO
A fabulous foray into a shadowy Victorian world
WOMAN & HOME
I loved this book and recommend it to anyone looking for a delightfully immersive and imaginative spell in the past
Martine Bailey, author of AN APPETITE FOR VIOLETS
Fox's vivid, sensual prose is - fittingly - as seductive as a siren's song, drawing you into a shadowy Victorian world of obsession and guilt... An intoxicating follow-up to 2011's acclaimed The Somnambulist. Recommended to fans of Sarah Waters
HEAT

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