God has abandoned the world. A county in flames. 1791. The age of belief and superstition is passing. A new light dawns. In Paris, revolution threatens to set the world ablaze. But whose hand stokes the fire? Across the sea in England, Thomas Peach lives in quiet retirement. Some call him a magician, others a madman. But when his friend the poetess Arabella Farthingay falls prey to a sinister seducer, Mr Peach's fading powers are called on once more. He follows her to France - and into a world where reason contends with terror, brotherhood with bloodshed, and the last remnants of faith with the oldest enemy of them all... Praise for Jas Treadwell: 'Treadwell's book is a magnificent pastiche of 18th-century fiction' The Sunday Times 'Tristram Shandy meets Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in a novel that addresses dark disturbing themes with tremendous wit, charm and elegance' Daily Express 'Part historical pastiche, part gothic horror, this is an ambitious and stylistically bold 18th-century adventure with shades of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' SFX 'Treadwell's book entertains and impresses . . . He must be heartily congratulated both for performing an extraordinary feat of literary ventriloquism and also for reminding us what historical fiction does best: create an entirely convincing vanished world while also using that world as a lens through which to view the present day' Guardian