Shadowplay: A Novel Paperback – November 9, 2021 by Joseph O’Connor

Description

Author: O’Connor Joseph

Package Dimensions: 26x210x320

Number Of Pages: 400

Release Date: 09-11-2021

Details: Product Description
Set during the golden age of West End theater in a lamp-lit London shaken by the crimes of Jack the Ripper, Shadowplay is a gripping novel of love, celebrity, and ambition by New York Times best-selling author, Joseph O’Connor.
Henry Irving is Victorian London’s most celebrated actor and theater impresario. As Irving’s Lyceum theater grows in reputation, he first lures to his company a young Dublin clerk harboring literary ambitions by the name of Bram Stoker, and then entices the century’s most beloved actress, the dazzlingly talented leading lady Ellen Terry, who nightly casts a spell not only on her audiences but on Stoker and Irving both.
Bram Stoker’s extraordinary experiences at the Lyceum Theatre inspire him to write Dracula,the most iconic and best-selling supernatural tale ever published.
Review
“I am a huge fan [of Shadowplay]. […] It’s rich, dense and beautifully written.”—Brendan Coyle, star of Downton Abbey, in The Chicago Tribune
★ “An affectionate, tender story about everyday heroism, secret selves, and triumphs and tragedies on stage and in life and the many kinds of love that bind us together.”—Library Journal (Starred Review)
★ “O’Connor’s characters are magnificently realized…This novel blows the dust off its Victorian trappings and brings them to scintillating life.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“Effervescent…Shadowplay is far more than a frothy entertainment. Subtly drawn and intensely affecting, this portrayal of accidental friendship, enduring love, frustrated ambition and, dare we say it, the alchemy of acting, recalls, in its effortless grace, those 19th-century novels that made readers of us all.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A vibrantly imaginative narrative of passion, intrigue and literary ambition.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A marvelous novel…Magnificent.”—Suzie Feay, Financial Times
“Joseph O’Connor’s graceful, insightful writing is immediately apparent…O’Connor’s engrossing story is wonderfully well served by the superb narration.”—BookTrib
“A thoughtful exploration of the tangled nature of desire and commitment.”—Kirkus Reviews
“There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, with such sensual density, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O’Connor is a wonder, and Shadowplay is a triumph.”—Peter Carey, author of Parrot and Olivier in America
“Shadowplay is an absolutely magnificent book. It’s not just a portrait of Bram Stoker, but a novel of the here and now. This is one of the best books of the year, anywhere.”—Colum McCann, Irish Independent, Books of the Year
“Resurrecting Victorian theatre in all its gaudy wizardry […] O’Connor’s panache and subtlety wonderfully match the gusto and creative finesse of the High Victorian world he dazzlingly evokes.”—The Sunday Times, a 2019 Best Novel of the Year
“Briskly paced, a plot elegantly clockworked, full of razor sharp insights on what it means just to be human, atmosphere spilling off the pages like early morning fog and full of gorgeous sentences that pulled me up short.”—Rick O’Shea, RTÉ, Best Books of 2019
“As much as this is a hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly—at times, agonizingly—a story of transience, loss and true loyalty.”—Sadie Jones, The Guardian
“An ingenious novel . . . O’Connor’s work is hugely impressive and utterly haunting.”—The Sunday Mirror
“A gorgeous, gorgeous book . . . A thing of great beauty.”—Ryan Tubridy, RTÉ Radio
“A mesmerizing read, beautifully researched.”—Sunday Independent
“Shadowplay totally swept me away . . . It’s a bit like Moulin Rouge meets Dracula. I absolutely loved it.”—Oliver Callan, Irish Examiner
“Intensely atmospheric . . . As a romp through Ripper-ravaged London, Shadowplay is mightily entertaining. But as a meditation on hidden sexuality, it is powerful and poignant.”—The Literary Review
“O’Connor is one of the best writers working today.”—Alice Walker, author of T