Rebecca Johns crea narrazioni che approfondiscono le intricate dinamiche delle relazioni umane e la ricerca dell'identità nella vita contemporanea. La sua prosa è riconosciuta per la sua profondità introspettiva e per l'acuta visione dell'esperienza femminile. Johns esplora temi come l'amore, la perdita e la crescita personale con una sfumata attenzione ai dettagli e precisione psicologica. Le sue opere risuonano con i lettori grazie alla loro autenticità e risonanza emotiva.
A dazzling, ambitious debut collection from a young talent, these critically acclaimed stories dip into the shadows and spotlights of life. From the pale waking hours to the darkling places, Clown's Shoes introduces a cast of lost characters trying to find their way, and asking whether everyone really does come salting home in the end?
Johns's creepily enticing second novel (after Icebergs) travels to 1611 Hungary as Countess Erzsébet Báthory-- aka the Blood Countess-- is being walled into a castle tower as punishment for the murder of dozens of women and girls. She begins writing her life story as an exposé of the many betrayals that have brought about this-- as she sees it-- outrageous and unjust imprisonment. The steady, calm tone of Erzsébet's narration lulls the reader along so that the first hints of madness in her girlhood engender doubt and discomfort rather than horror, and as her lack of remorse and grandiose sense of entitlement are unveiled, a matter-of-fact self-portrait of a murderer emerges. This is a carefully researched story, gothic in tone and grimly atmospheric, with subtly handled psychology and an initially unassuming tone. Unlike most serial killer stories, this rewards patience and close reading--Publishers' Weekly
London, 1926: Henry Twist's heavily pregnant wife leaves home to meet a friend. On the way, she is hit by a bus and killed, though miraculously, the baby survives. Henry is left with nothing but his new daughter - a single father in a world without single fathers. He hurries the baby home, terrified that she'll be taken from him. Racked with guilt and fear, he stays away from prying eyes; walking her through the streets at night, under cover of darkness.But one evening, a strange man materialises from the shadows and addresses Henry by name. The man says that he has lost his memory, but that his name is Jack. Henry is both afraid of and drawn to Jack, and the more time they spend together, the more Henry sees that this man has echoes of his dead wife. His mannerisms, some things he says... And so Henry wonders, has his wife returned to him? Has he conjured Jack himself from thin air? Or is he in the grip of a sophisticated con man? Who really sent him?Set in a London reeling and recovering from the First World War, where English life is enjoying a vibrancy again, The Haunting of Henry Twist is a novel about the limits and potential of love and of grief. It is about the lengths we will go to to hold on to what is precious to us, what we will forgive of those we love, and what we will sacrifice for the sake of our own happiness.
Oskarżana o czary, morderstwa młodych kobiet, a nawet kąpiel w ich krwi. Do dziś krążą legendy o jej wyjątkowym okrucieństwie wobec sług, a także licznych kochankach obojga płci. Czy Elżbieta była bestią wyzutą z ludzkich uczuć, brutalnie mordującą niewinne kobiety, aby zachować młodość? A może padła ofiarą politycznych rozgrywek? Jedenastoletnia Elżbieta, siostrzenica Stefana Batorego, opuszcza rodzinny dom i zostaje zmuszona do zaręczyn. Szybko musi odnaleźć się w roli żony i... kochanki. Sama wśród obcych, zabiega o ich względy, by przetrwać w świecie pełnym wyrafinowanych intryg, gry o władzę i przemocy. Osamotniona, oślepiona tęsknotą za nieodwzajemnioną miłością, poddaje się szalonemu złudzeniu, że przelana krew pomoże jej zdobyć władzę i posłuch. Setki młodych kobiet przybywają do zamku, by go już nigdy nie opuścić Przez stulecia legenda o Elżbiecie Batory żyła własnym życiem i stała się inspiracją dla pisarstwa Brama Stokera, Julia Cortzara i Joe Alexa. Oto prawdziwa, napisana z rozmachem opowieść o Hrabinie z Siedmiogrodu, jednej z najbardziej inteligentnych i światłych kobiet swoich czasów.