A tense, romantic thriller about stolen art treasures and precarious passion, this gripping story confirms Sally Emerson’s status as a preeminent novelist of the mysterious, erotic and dramatic. Patrick Browning first sees Anne Fitzgerald in the British Museum in front of the Elgin Marbles; both young historians are fighting to uncover the secrets of Mary Nisbet, the notorious wife of Lord Elgin. Anne thinks the present is frightening, but finds the past compelling, while Patrick lives life at one remove, preferring the women in books to those in real life. Before long, their research spills over into an all-too-real rivalry, a rivalry charged with tension and attraction – a rivalry which twists their own scarred love affairs to breaking point...