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In modern-day London, architectural historian and recovering alcoholic Annie Kendall hopes to turn her life around and restart her career by locating several long-missing pieces of ancient Judaica. Geoff Harris, an investigative reporter, is soon drawn into her quest, both by romantic interest and suspicions about the head of the Shalom Foundation, the organization sponsoring her work. He's also a dead ringer for the ghost of a monk Annie believes she has seen at the flat she is subletting in Bristol House.
In 1535, Tudor London is a very different city, one in which monks are being executed by Henry VIII and Jews are banished. In this treacherous environment of religious persecution, Dom Justin, a Carthusian monk, and a goldsmith known as the Jew of Holborn must navigate a shadowy world of intrigue involving Thomas Cromwell, Jewish treasure, and sexual secrets. Their struggles shed light on the mysteries Annie and Geoff aim to puzzle out - at their own peril.
This riveting dual-period narrative seamlessly blends a haunting supernatural thriller with vivid historical fiction. Beverly Swerling, widely acclaimed for her City of Dreams series, delivers a bewitching and epic story of a historian and a monk, half a millennium apart, whose destinies are on a collision course.
"This latest effort by Swerling is nicely penned but also ponderous and overloaded with out-of-place sexual vernacular, an overabundance of detail, and a tired, evil Catholic Church conspiracy." - Kirkus Reviews
"Some readers may find it odd that Annie calls Geoff an Inspector Javert for still caring whether a sinister conspiracy arranged the killing of Rabin. Others may find aspects of the plot unintentionally funny." - Publishers Weekly
"Swerling adds a paranormal dimension to her latest novel, interweaving narratives set in contemporary and Tudor London...Elements of romance, religious mythology, cultism, and the supernatural abound as this genre-blending thriller stretches back and forth through time to a suitably dramatic denouement." - Booklist
This information about Bristol House was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Sigrid Estrada
Beverly Swerling is a writer, a consultant, and an avid amateur historian. She was born in Boston 1941 and raised there. She spent much of her adult life in Europe and New York City.
Her works include City Of Dreams, Shadowbrook, City of Glory, City of God, City of Promise, and Bristol house.
Her novel City of Dreams was published in 2001. It is the first of a series of best-sellers that feature the intertwined histories of two dynasties, the Turners and the Devreys through the early centuries of the United States.
She lives in New York City with her husband.
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