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Miss Temple's pursuit soon leads to a remote, forbidding estate where all inhibitions are laid bare and shocking discoveries lie behind its closed doors: men and women in provocative disguise, acts of licentiousness and violence, heroism and awakening. But she will also find two allies: Cardinal Chang, a brutal assassin with the heart of a poet, and a royal doctor named Svenson, at once fumbling and heroic — both of whom, like her, lost someone at Harschmort Manor. The search for answers hurtles this unlikely trio from elegant brothels and gaslit alleyways to astonishing moments of self-discovery and ever-mounting peril. For the conspiracy they face — a perverted alchemy of science, religion, and lust for power — is terrifying beyond belief.
By turns brutal and tender, shocking and deliciously romantic, The Glass Books of The Dream Eaters is a novel for the ages, a bold and brilliant work of the imagination.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
August 1, 2006 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780743561891
- File size: 350520 KB
- Duration: 12:10:14
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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While Alfred Molina's narrative voice pulls listeners into this dark Victorian-age novel, his consistency of male characters lacks grace. And while he smoothly delivers the voice of protagonist Celeste Temple, he is not as successful in his characterizations of males, occasionally confusing listeners. Temple comes to England to learn why her fiancé has broken off their engagement with no explanation. As she spies on him, she becomes entangled in a seedy underworld of English elites who are playing with powerful forces beyond her understanding. Joined by two helpful but questionable men, she also must find out what her quest has to do with "glass books." Molina's performance isn't perfect, but, overall, it adds to this intriguing story. L.E. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine -
June 12, 2006
Debut novelist Dahlquist aims for a blockbuster with a mishmash of Sherlock Holmes, Jane Eyre and Eyes Wide Shut
that never quite comes together. Three months after 25-year-old Celeste Temple travels from "her island" (a Bermuda-like place) plantation home to Victorian London, fiancé Roger Bascombe breaks their engagement. Driven more by curiosity than desire, she follows him from his job at the foreign ministry to Harschmort House, where, with little prodding, she quickly finds herself in silk undergarments at a ritual involving masked guests and two-way mirrors. Making her escape, Miss Temple (as she's called throughout) kills a henchman. Ceremony organizers pursue her as she pursues their secrets. Poetry-quoting assassin Cardinal Chang and diplomat Dr. Abelard Svenson come to her aid. Chang tries to save a half-Chinese prostitute; Abelard tries to save a governess named Elöise; Miss Temple discovers she is not the woman she thought she was, nor Roger the man she hoped for. Meanwhile, through science and alchemy, evildoers capture erotic memories and personal will in blue crystals. Dahlquist introduces so many characters, props and plot twists, near-death experiences and narrow escapes that the novel has the feel of a frantic R-rated classic comic book—if comics were arch.
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