a secret alchemy
"Intensely atmospheric… adds up to a spellbinding whole" - The Times
"Powerful and utterly convincing." - Daily Mail
UK & Commonwealth edition
about a secret Alchemy
Two murdered princes; a powerful queen betrayed; a nobleman riding to his certain death ...
A Secret Alchemy recreates the terrible, exhilarating world of the Wars of the Roses: the power struggles and passion that lay behind the Princes' births, the danger into which they fell, and the ultimate betrayal of their innocence.
In A Secret Alchemy three voices speak: Elizabeth Woodville, the beautiful widow of King Edward IV; her brother Anthony, surrogate father to the doomed princes; and present-day historian Una Pryor, whose experience of betrayal and lost love helps her unlock the mystery and tragedy of the Princes in the Tower.
A Secret Alchemy reached the Sunday Times Bestsellers List in April 2009, and was named as one of The Times’ Best Paperbacks of that year. It has been translated into many languages.
Scroll down to read an extract, and the reviews; to buy a copy, click one of the buttons:
read an extract
The road lifts to a bridge over the Foss itself where Whitecarr Beck joins it, and as we clatter across a heron turns its head to gauge this new threat, then shakes its wings out and with a few, quick steps rises into the air.
The body has its own memory. My left hand shortens the reins before my mind knows it, and my right arm aches with remembering the shift and grip of my goshawk’s weight. She was big, even for a goshawk, and her name was Juno. When she bated on her block in the mews her wings were the best part of four feet from primary to primary, and my care for her, that summer, was such that any day I could have told her weight down to the nearest ounce and grain. ‘Goshawks are delicate,’ Wat the austringer would say. ‘They’ll not take much lightening, but if you over-feed her by so much as a fieldmouse, Master Antony, she’ll rake away and never come back.’ My belly would quake at the thought of losing her. Even now I remember the steely blue-grey gloss of her back as if I could touch it, the soft, white, speckled chest-feathers that she would let me rub when her mood was good, her long, strong legs that took possession of my fist like a conqueror.
‘She sees every feather of that heron,’ Wat said. ‘Even your young eyes, master, they’re nothing to hers. Now, gently off with her hood. Let her see it first. You’ll feel when she wants to fly.’ I unhooded her and unknotted her leash and she shifted her talons, loosing her wings at the shoulder as if she readied her sword in its scabbard. She turned her black-capped head, her gaze fixing on each part of her new surroundings in turn, like a bowman on guard duty.
My father sat still on his horse in the water meadow’s morning light and Wat nodded to me as the heron’s flight steadied, high above and before us. I did my best to throw Juno into the air. My arm was puny against the weight and power of her surge and my hand clenched tighter before I realised and opened it and let the jesses go.
US edition
read the reviews
"There is historical fiction - and there is historical fiction. Anyone can dust down a set of fusty old names, chuck in a few mead-fuelled brawls and the odd syphilitic courtesan and be done with it. It takes real skill - and devotion - to bring characters blurred by the passage of time into focus, to breathe real life into them, to make their existence tangible to the 21st-century mind. In A Secret Alchemy, Emma Darwin has managed such sorcery... Passion is also the key to the success of this book. Not your standard, cinematic carnal passion (although there is enough of that: the scene in which Edward proposes to Elizabeth is worthy of the steamiest Andrew Davies bodice-ripper); rather Darwin's evident and genuine passion for her subject: history. There are several great love affairs to be found in these pages - but perhaps the greatest is the author's own with the past: the gossamer-thin threads of memory, real and imagined - and the shimmering web that they weave.
"Such fascination is channelled through the character of Una. As the tragic events in her own life lead her to the ghosts of these long-dead noblemen and women, so she leads the reader through the maze of the past. Slowly, meticulously... Darwin builds an intensely atmospheric narrative. Her characters emerge from the rough marble of time into beautifully rounded, polished figures. It takes a while for the reader to get to know them; but when you do, the depth of the acquaintance is such that you feel their fates all the more acutely. There are many twists and turns in this tale, some of them real, some of them not; together they add up to a spellbinding whole." -The Times
------
"There is far and away enough drama in the actual history of the Wars of the Roses to fuel a fine novel, and Darwin takes full advantage of it all... What does she make of the mystery of the little princes in the Tower? You’ll have to read this terrific novel to find out. I couldn’t put it down for the entire 399 pages." - Toronto Globe and Mail
------
"A detailed and fascinating historical novel... a real winner for any fans of Philippa Gregory, Alison Weir and their ilk." - Waterstones Books Quarterly
------
"...beautifully paints the world surrounding the princes in the Tower... a love story which moves effortlessly between the past and the present." - Edinburgh Evening News
------
"Spellbinding." - Woman & Home
------
"Powerful and utterly convincing."- Daily Mail
------
"A convincing and intelligent read." - The Bookseller
------
"Complex and engaging, written with great intelligence and a fine grained feeling for the period." - Sydney Morning Herald
------
"A very intelligent read... very tightly written, wonderfully inspirational. It really takes you places." - Radio New Zealand
------
"In measured, golden prose, Darwin gives breath - and joy, hope and tears - to dusty textbook characters. An engrossing read." - WHO Weekly
------
"Shifts effortlessly between the historical era and present-day England... Darwin writes so compellingly of love, loss, grief, and of human lives driven by forces outside any
one person's control that the novel remains gripping from its very beginning." - Notebook Magazine
------
"A work of great atmosphere and a story well told." - Sydney Sunday Telegraph
------
"Breathtaking drama ... Darwin's at her most powerful exploring Anthony's faith or Elizabeth's understanding of women, love and marriage in her time... a satisfying end ties the threads together." - Publisher’s Weekly
------
"Beautiful and unique, and Darwin weaves past and present together seamlessly. Darwin’s authorial skills are showcased most brilliantly with Elizabeth... Darwin gets her “voice” just right. Elizabeth is innocent yet wise, and as she grows up, marries, matures and deals with increasingly more difficult circumstances, her narrative voice grows, too... Darwin strikes the perfect balance with these characters; they are rooted in historical truth, yet are enough the product of her imagination to keep the reader completely absorbed." – www.armchairinterviews.com
------
"An exceptional novel... Darwin is a very assured writer who knows how to make her story compelling... certainly succeeds at breathing life into the historical scenes. Past and present contain parallel elements — family secrets, uncles, lost loves. But the story never seems forced or false." - Halifax Herald
------
"A judicious blend of scholarship and poetic flourish... matters of the heart, not history, are at the novel’s core, and the period details are delightful. There are fine descriptions of falconry, chivalry, court manners and intrigue, of the natural world, and of lust. There is also the perennial obsession with blood... The intimacy that Darwin creates in her parallel stories of Elizabeth’s bloody trials and of Una’s immersion in the past is touching... - in any century everything is still a family matter." - Boston Globe
------
"This wonderful piece of storytelling gets to the heart of the characters involved... We feel what it must have been like to live in those turbulent times as the characters come to life and we empathise with their fear...I was captivated." – Ryedale Gazette & Herald
------
"... draws the readers into the time and events that took place over 500 years ago. It will have you wanting answers to questions that have been long since forgotten. This novel is a truly remarkable way of bringing history back to the forefront of everyday life." – Hunts Post