Sea change

AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4'Unsettling and strange, Sea Change cements Nathan's reputation as one of our most interesting historical novelists.' The Times'A strange, touching tale of hope and redemption' Sunday Times Best Historical Fiction'That rare kind of historical fiction that both captures the period well and creates an absorbing narrative.' Charles Palliser'I'll be back soon, my love. Tonight, I hope.'The last Eve saw of her mother was a wave from the basket of a rising balloon.

A wilful, lonely orphan in the house of her erratic artist guardian, Eve struggles to retain the image of her missing mother and the father she never knew.

In a London beset by pageantry, incipient riot and the fear of Napoleonic invasion, Eve must grow into a young woman with no one to guide her through its perils. Far away, in a Norfolk fishing village, the Rev Snead preaches hellfire and damnation to his impoverished parishioners and oppressed wife.

Snead illustrates his sermons with the example of a mute woman pulled from the sea, over whom he keeps a very close watch indeed.