**A SUNDAY TIMES AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

**A SUNDAY TIMES AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW AND THE SEA SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2025 **

** Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. . .* **Winter 1899, and strange things are afoot. As the new century approaches, English hack writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat. But in the midst of a rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn's plans for a substantial inheritance look to be dashed.

Arriving in Venice for their belated honeymoon at Palazzo Dioscuri - the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo - the couple are met by a series of seemingly

otherworldly occurrences, which exacerbate Evelyn's already frayed nerves. Is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city, or is he really losing his mind?**'A marvellous and rewarding novelist . . . He is a magician, really.'* THE SCOTSMAN 'Banville has a grim gift of seeing people's souls.' DON DeLILLO 'The most eminent innovator in Irish fiction of the last 50 years.' IRISH TIMES *

'One of my favourite writers alive.' REBECCA F. KUANG

'Banville writes prose of such luscious elegance.'** ** NEW YORK TIMES*****