FICTION

A Great Act of Love

Heather Rose

Allen & Unwin, $34.99

Praise be. It is not a dark and stormy night as Heather Rose’s new novel opens but a warm midsummer evening, 1836, London. The moon is full and Caroline, responding to her father’s whistle from the pavement, rushes up the stairs for this unexpected meeting. His manner is agitated, his skin ashen and when she reaches for his hand she is cut by a short knife covered in blood. She takes it from him and flings it into the Thames. He walks away into the shadows and Caroline, a mere slip of a girl, retreats into a terrible solitude.

Heather Rose is esteemed by those who award literary prizes but she has the distinction of also being adored by readers of popular fiction. She is restless with her gifts, writing about and across

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