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Sign up todayIslands of Mercy
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Learn moreBrought to you by Penguin.
She was 'The Angel of the Baths', the one woman whose touch everybody yearned for. Yet she would do more. She was certain of that.
In the city of Bath, in the year 1865, an extraordinary young woman renowned for her nursing skills is convinced that some other destiny will one day show itself to her. But when she finds herself torn between a dangerous affair with a female lover and the promise of a conventional marriage to an apparently respectable doctor, her desires begin to lead her towards a future she had never imagined.
Meanwhile, on the wild island of Borneo, an eccentric British 'rajah', Sir Ralph Savage, overflowing with philanthropy but compromised by his passions, sees his schemes relentlessly undermined by his own fragility, by man's innate greed and by the invasive power of the forest itself.
Jane's quest for an altered life and Sir Ralph's endeavours become locked together as the story journeys across the globe - from the confines of an English tearoom to the rainforests of a tropical island via the slums of Dublin and the transgressive fancy-dress boutiques of Paris.
Islands of Mercy is a novel that ignites the senses, and is a bold exploration of the human urge to seek places of sanctuary in a pitiless world.
© Rose Tremain 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020
Rose Tremain’s novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award (The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music & Silence), the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Femina Etranger (Sacred Country) and the South Bank Sky Arts Award (The Gustav Sonata). Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007 and a Dame in 2020. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.
Of Islands of Mercy, Rose Tremain writes: ‘This novel explores the primal and timeless human quest to find meaning in a life, an aspiration which engages people in wildly different ways across the globe. I chose two contrasting locations: the genteel city of Bath and the harsh island of Borneo and unfolded in them both stories of sexual entrapment, material striving, loss of love, untimely death and – through them all – the desperate and unending search for places of consolation and solace.’
www.rosetremain.co.uk
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