In the bestselling tradition of The Night Circus and Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, Adam McOmber’s hauntingly original debut novel follows a young woman in Victorian England whose peculiar abilities help her infiltrate a
mysterious secret society.
“The White Forest drips with the dark and gothic chills of Victorian London. Adam McOmber will keep you up nights with this eerie tale that grafts mystery to
myth. A spooky and original novel.”
"A sinuous, antiquated style proves marvelously effective."
"Eerie, sorrowful, and disquieting."
Young Jane Silverlake lives with her father at a crumbling family estate on
the edge of Hampstead Heath. Jane has a secret — an unexplainable gift
that allows her to see the souls of manmade objects — and this talent
isolates her from the outside world. Her greatest joy is wandering the
wild heath with her neighbors, Madeline and Nathan. But as the friends
come of age, their idyll is shattered by the feelings both girls develop for Nathan, and by Nathan’s interest in a cult led by Ariston Day, a
charismatic mystic popular with London's elite. Day encourages his
followers to explore dream manipulation, with the goal of discovering a
new virtual reality, a place he calls the Empyrean.
A year
later, Nathan has vanished, and the famed Inspector Vidocq arrives in
London to untangle the events that led up to Nathan’s disappearance. As a sinister truth emerges, Jane realizes she must discover the origins of
her talent and use it to find Nathan herself, before it’s too late.
Adam McOmber, whose short story collection This New and Poisonous Air earned glowing praise for its evocative prose, here reveals a gift for
fantastical twists and dark turns that literary fans will relish.
