Main description:

In the Victorian Age, a mysterious and irresistible woman becomes entwined in the lives of several artists, both as a muse and as the object of all-consuming obsession. Radborne Comstock, one of the early twentieth century's most brilliant young painters, is helpless under her dangerous spell.

In modern-day London, journalist Daniel Rowlands meets a beguiling woman who holds the secret to invaluable -- and lost -- Pre-Raphaelite paintings, while wealthy dilettante-actor Valentine Comstock is consumed by enigmatic visions.

Swirling between eras and continents, Mortal Love is the intense tale of unforgettable characters caught in a whirlwind of art, love, and intrigue that will take your breath away.

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“ I think she has written the best book of her generation.”

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“A brilliant novel like Elizabeth Hand’s recent Mortal Love deserves all the readers it can get.”

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“A great gothic read, and one that dishes up all the dark delights.”

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“A literary page-turner…deeply pleasurable…Hand’s lushly worded tale is consistently gripping. … A delightful waking dream.” (Four stars)

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“A lushly written treat that is also that rarest of things, a thought-provoking literary page-turner.”

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“A wonderfully Gothic atmosphere, with lush visual imagery and rich poetic language.”

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“At once a painting in prose, an investigation into artistic obsession and a re-evaluation…. Ambitious and richly imagined.”

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“Don’t turn the pages too fast–if you can help it.”

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“Elizabeth Hand is a writer whose vision, and whose writing into that extraordinary vision of hers, is exceptional…”

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“Mortal Love is a wildly intelligent, dangerously sexy read.”

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“Mortal Love is bewitching, sexy, creepy and, under all, dazzlingly romantic.”

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“The novel succeeds as both a thriller and a meditation on the mysterious nature of inspiration.”

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“You don’t so much read this novel as drink it down, like absinthe.”