Our next guest on the podcast is Essie Fox, reading from her instant Sunday Times bestseller, The Fascination. It’s a Victorian story about the estranged grandson of a wealthy collector of human curiosities, who becomes fascinated with teenage twin sisters, leading them into a web of dark obsessions… And we love this dazzlingly gothic novel from the bestselling author of The Somnambulist.

‘A magical, macabre masterpiece’ – A.J. West, author of The Spirit Engineer 

This is a perfect pick for anyone who enjoyed Laura Shephard-Robinson’s The Square of Sevens or Liz Hyder’s The Illusions. (And if you’d like a non-fiction book on the subject of Victorian circuses and curiosities, then read John Woolf’s The Wonders.)

The Fascination by Essie Fox is published by independent publisher Orenda Books and available now. We recommend buying a copy from your local indie bookshop or you can visit our shop on Bookshop.org. Or you can grab a special signed and numbered first edition with beautiful sprayed edges from our indie bookshop friends Goldsboro Books.

Podcast produced and edited by Megan Bay Dorman

Programmed by Matt Casbourne

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices