Sarah Perry

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER Overall Book of the Year and Fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2017 (Nibbies) Longlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction The Waterstones Book of the Year 2016 Shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Novel Award London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne's controlling husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Along with her son Francis - a curious, obsessive boy - she leaves town for Essex, in the hope that fresh air and open space will provide refuge. On arrival, rumours reach them that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming lives, has returned to the coastal parish of Aldwinter. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for superstition, is enthralled, convinced that what the local people think is a magical beast may be a yet-undiscovered species. As she sets out on its trail, she is introduced to William Ransome, Aldwinter's vicar, who is also deeply suspicious of the rumours, but thinks they are a distraction from true faith. As he tries to calm his parishioners, Will and Cora strike up an intense relationship, and although they agree on absolutely nothing, they find themselves at once drawn together and torn apart, affecting each other in ways that surprise them both. The Essex Serpent is a celebration of love, and the many different shapes it can take.

The number one bestseller and British Book Awards Book of the Year

The Essex Serpent

Emiley Jones

"Not yet," she said. "Not yet: but change is slow. Even the world turns by inches."

Lauri

The pendulum swings from one year to the next, and there's  darkness on the face of the deep.

Luke diagnosed himself to be in love, and sought no cure for the disease.

There was grief, too, that was certain, and she was grateful for it, since however loathed he'd been by the end, he'd formed her, at least in part - and what good ever came of self-loathing?

Perhaps he dealt elsewhere with kindness - yes: perhaps that was it - perhaps she'd been a kind of clearing-house for cruelties deserved elsewhere.

...but perhaps that's the point; perhaps we are always alone, no matter the company we keep.

He eyed his visitor, and evidently concluded that no woman in such a coat could be frightened by mere monsters.

Reverend Ransome, she thought, scornfully: as if some slow-witted parson and his fatcheeked children could interest her Cora!

Martha says I never looked odder or uglier, but you know I've always thought beauty a curse and am more than happy to dispense with it completely. Sometimes I forget that I'm a woman - at least - I forget to think of myself as a woman. All the obligations and comforts of womanhood seem to have nothing to do with me now. I'm not sure how I am supposed to behave and I'm not sure I would, if I knew.

Oh, she had loved him - no-one could ever have loved more: she'd been too young to withstand it, a child intoxicated by an inch of drink. He had been imprinted on her vision, as if she'd glanced at the sun and closing her eyes found a pinprick of light persisting in the darkness. He had been so sombre that when attempts at levity made him laugh she'd felt an empress in command of an army; he was so stern, and so remote, that the first moment he embraced her had been a battle won. She'd not known then that these were the common tricks of a common trickster, to cede a skirmish and later lay her waste.

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