{"product_id":"the-essex-serpent-a-novel-isbn-9780062696274","title":"The Essex Serpent: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNOW AN APPLE TV+ SERIES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Work of Fiction * Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year *A \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews \u003c\/i\u003eBest Book of The Year * Waterstones Book of the Year * Costa Book Award Finalist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“A novel of almost insolent ambition—lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it’s part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home.” \u003ci\u003e—New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLondon, 1893. In this compelling work of historical fiction, Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, and she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one, and she never suited the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves the metropolis for coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year-old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOnce there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature central to this atmospheric gothic novel, has returned. When a young man is mysteriously killed on New Year’s Eve, the community’s dread transforms to terror. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, is immediately enthralled, certain that what locals think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEager to investigate, she is introduced to parish vicar William Ransome, who is equally suspicious of the rumors but for different reasons: a man of faith, he is convinced the alarming reports are caused by moral panic, a flight from the correct and righteous path. As Cora and William attempt to discover the truth about the Essex Serpent’s existence, these seeming opposites find themselves inexorably drawn together in an intense relationship that will change both of them in ways entirely unexpected. And as they search for answers, Cora’s London past follows her to the coast, with striking consequences. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTold with exquisite grace and intelligence, \u003ci\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/i\u003e masterfully explores questions of science and religion, skepticism and faith, but it is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different—and surprising—guises it can take.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProclaimed as “one of the most memorable historical novels of the past decade” by the \u003cem\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e, the rapturous #1 bestseller and Waterstones Book of the Year in the UK arrives in America\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLondon, 1893. When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one, and she never suited the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves the metropolis for coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year-old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOnce there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature that once roamed the marshes, has returned. When a young man is mysteriously killed on New Year’s Eve, the community’s dread transforms to terror. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, is immediately enthralled, certain that what locals think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. Eager to investigate, she is introduced to parish vicar William Ransome, who is equally suspicious of the rumors but for different reasons: a man of faith, he is convinced the alarming reports are caused by moral panic, a flight from the correct and righteous path. As Cora and William attempt to discover the truth about the Essex Serpent’s existence, these seeming opposites find themselves inexorably drawn together in an intense relationship that will change both of them in ways entirely unexpected. And as they search for answers, Cora’s London past follows her to the coast, with striking consequences.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“For originality, richness of prose and depth of characterization is unlikely to be bettered this year ... one of the most memorable historical novels of the past decade.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Irresistible... you can feel the influences of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Hilary Mantel channeled by Perry in some sort of Victorian séance. This is the best new novel I’ve read in years.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Perry’s achieved the near impossible…A thing of beauty inside and out… a stunning achievement.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“An exquisitely absorbing, old-fashioned page-turner…\u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/em\u003e is shot through with such a vivid, lively sense of the period that it reads like Charles Dickens at his most accessible and fans of Jonathan Strange \u0026amp; Mr. Norrell will also find much to love.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaily Express\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A novel to relish: a work of great intelligence and charm, by a hugely talented author.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSarah Waters\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent \u003c\/em\u003eis Sarah Perry’s first book to come across the pond to us from Great Britain, and it is a corker...Even the most minor characters are filled with a particular life, light and love...one of the best, most memorable novels I have read in long years.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaily Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Astonishing...Perry’s prose is rich, textured, and intricate...a thoughtful and elegant book about the human need for knowledge and love, and about the fears and desires we bury.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eVox\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Compulsive...narrative and voice coil together until it is very difficult to stop reading.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Perry’s second novel is a dazzling and intellectually nimble work of Gothic fiction.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Gate\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A big, warm, generous novel that wears its considerable wisdom lightly, \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent \u003c\/em\u003eis an absolute pleasure from start to finish—I truly didn’t want it to end.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMelissa Harrison, author of At Hawthorn Time\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Sarah Perry’s novel of 19th century England tackles big ideas...reversals and sharp darts of psychological insight combined with a sense of the substance and feeling of late 19th-century ideas in bloom make this a fine novel, both historical and otherwise.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Richly enjoyable... Ms. Perry writes beautifully and sometimes agreeably sharply... \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/em\u003e is a wonderfully satisfying novel. Ford Madox Ford thought the glory of the novel was its ability to make the reader think and feel at the same time. This one does just that.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The most delightful heroine since Elizabeth Bennet in \u003cem\u003ePride and Prejudice\u003c\/em\u003e…Perry creates that delicate illusion of the best historical fiction: an authentic sense of the past—its manners, ideals and speech—that feels simultaneously distant and relevant to us…By the end, \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/em\u003e identifies a mystery far greater than some creature ‘from the illuminated margins of a manuscript’: friendship.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A novel of almost insolent ambition--lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it’s part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In Perry’s excellent second novel… a fatal illness, a knife-wielding maniac, and a fated union with the Essex Serpent will dictate the ultimate happiness of [the] characters. Like John Fowles’s \u003cem\u003eThe French Lieutenant’s Woman...\u003c\/em\u003e this is another period literary pastiche with a contemporary overlay.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The vivid, often frightening imagery… and the lush descriptions… create a magical background for the sensual love story between Sarah and Will. Book-discussion groups will have a field day with the imagery, the well-developed characters, and the concepts of innocence, evil, and guilt.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A Victorian-era gothic with a Dickensian focus on societal ills, Perry’s second novel surprises in its wonderful freshness . . . [her] singular characters are drawn with a fondness that is both palpable and contagious, all making for pure pleasure.”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Everything they’re saying is true: sumptuous, beautiful, powerful, engrossing, brilliant.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNina Stibbe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Irresistible” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeople (Book of the Week)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A fabulous summer read...If \u003cem\u003eMiddlemarch\u003c\/em\u003e heroine Dorothea Brooke had heard of dinosaurs, she might have gone tromping through the salt marshes with Cora Seaborne.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Triumphs on every level, whether in its rich, evocative prose or its authentic Victorian detail, its credible, multifaceted characters or its high-stakes drama...Perry likened writing her novel to a ‘possession.’ Reading it, we find ourselves under a similar mesmerizing spell.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“As engrossing as its reputation would suggest...Perry’s command of language as a tool to evoke time and place proves remarkable.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePaste Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The sumptuous twists and turns of Perry’s prose invite close reading, as deep and strange and full of narrative magic as the Blackwater itself. Fans of Sarah Waters, A.S. Byatt, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s \u003cem\u003eThe Signature of All Things\u003c\/em\u003e should prepare to fall under Perry’s spell and into her very capable hands. Stuffed with smarts and storytelling sorcery, this is a work of astonishing breadth and brilliance.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The sumptuous twists and turns of Perry’s prose invite close reading, as deep and strange and full of narrative magic as the Blackwater itself. Stuffed with smarts and storytelling sorcery, this is a work of astonishing breadth and brilliance.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Had Charles Dickens and Bram Stoker come together to write the great Victorian novel, I wonder if it would have surpassed \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/em\u003e? Sarah Perry establishes herself as one of the finest fiction writers working in Britain today.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJohn Burnside\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“At once numinous, intimate and wise, \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/em\u003e is a marvellous novel about the workings of life, love and belief, about science and religion, secrets, mysteries, and the complicated and unexpected shifts of the human heart…It is so good its pages seem lit from within.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHelen Schulman, New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Perry fully inhabits many of the concerns and stylistic elements of the 19th century novel -- but its interests are still contemporary ones: desire, fulfillment and questioning the world… Her language is exquisite, her characterization finely tuned… [I]t’s clear that Perry is a gifted writer of immense ability.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e “Dickensian in scope, depth, and exquisite use of language … At once love story and mystery, deeply penetrating layered characters with wit and grace, \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpen\u003c\/em\u003et reveals the mundane beast that spawned wild rumors, and the stranger, less easily unmasked beasts within us.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHistorical Novels Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Gloriously alive.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNPR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A blissful novel of unapologetic appetites, where desire and faith mingle on the marshes, but friendship is the miracle. Sarah Perry has the rare gift of committing the uncommittable to prose -- that is to say: here is a writer who understands life.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A suspenseful love story… \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent\u003c\/em\u003e recalls variously the earthiness of Emily Brontë, the arch, high-tensile tone of Conan Doyle, the evocation of time and place achieved by Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters and the antiquarian edgelands horror of M. R. James.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Confident, intelligent and original storytelling -- I was seduced by the many charms of \u003cem\u003eThe Essex Serpent.\u003c\/em\u003e” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLaline Paull, author of The Bees\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[T]he most deeply satisfying fiction you will read this year.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWaterstones Book of the Year\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mariner Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888464294117,"sku":"NP9780062696274","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062696274.jpg?v=1730229142","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-essex-serpent-a-novel-isbn-9780062696274","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}