PrecipiceIndependent Bookshop Edition with sprayed edges. FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR A master storyteller Observer Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe. In London, 26 year old Venetia Stanley aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state. As Asquith reluctantly

While the gilded youth sip the viridescent liquid

She can't clear her own name

Sidney is called to investigate the unexpected fall of a Cambridge don from the roof of King's College Chapel

and then another

And all the while

Watching as the Mannian army slaughters their way across the world

in the falling rain

mind-bending

in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself

Imogen Robertson

Courage in this era lies not in acts of heroic daring

tight-lipped community whose mistrust of outsiders can turn ugly