Walton & Waltraud Inquiry Agents, Book One.
1901. After the death of Queen Victoria, England heaves with the uncanny. Séances are held and the dead are called upon from darker realms. Helena Walton-Cisneros, known for her ability to find the lost and the displaced, is hired by the elusive Lady Matthews to solve a twenty-year-old mystery: the disappearance of her three stepdaughters who vanished without a trace on the Norfolk Fens. But the Fens are an age-old land, where folk tales and dark magic still linger. The locals speak of devilmen and catatonic children are found on the Broads. Here, Helena finds what she was sent for, as the Fenland always gives up its secrets, in the end…
“A fascinating, unsettling tale that shifts. A weird and brilliant debut novel.” – Lisa Tuttle
“Graceful, moving, confident and intricate, like slipping into a warm bath and finding secret thorns there to pierce the heart.” – Catherynne Valente
“Precise and eerie … Readers will be rewarded with moments of disquieting beauty.” – Publishers Weekly
“A smart, haunting novel that stuns the reader with its elegance and beauty but refuses to leave their mind after reading.” – Jonathan Thornton, The Fantasy Hive
“It’s in keeping with Womack’s past work that the most resonant moments in this novel are those where the landscape becomes a character, and arguably the most sinister one to be found within these pages.” – Tobias Carroll, Tor.com
“…Part Shirley Jackson’s stories of inner demons, part Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland…part Astrid Lindgren’s faith in children’s resilience and part ghost story… Getting drawn into this story is easy; getting out again is trickier.” – BookPage
Marian Womack 