Bone House : A Novel

SUMMARY: Gothic, elegant, and suspenseful, "Bone House" vividly evokes seventeenth-century rural England. It is the tale of two women. One is Dora -- large, voluptuous, and charismatic -- a prostitute to whom men are drawn for pleasure, women for friendship. Her strange death in an icy ravine affects everyone in the tiny village: her enormous, slow-minded son; an embittered midwife; the hunchbacked lord of the manor; his decaying mother; and an itin- erant portrait painter, whose arrival in the village unearths secrets and passions beyond anyone's expectations. The other -- young, slight, and solitary -- is a dutiful chambermaid to the mistress of the manor until Dora's accident begins to distract her from her daily tasks. Her quest to uncover the truth about the prostitute's mysterious life and sudden death leads her to a terrible discovery, and the beginnings of a future. A novel about murder, flesh, fertility, desire, medicine, and art, "Bone House" transports readers to stratified Elizabethan England, where the body -- or "bone house" -- had a primary role in deter-mining one's destiny. Sensual, sophisticated, and fiercely compelling, this is an uncommonly assured debut. Fiction,Mystery & Detective,General,Historical,Traditional British In this stunning debut, Betsy Tobin spins a classic tale of gothic suspense. Immersing readers in Elizabethan England, she masterfully evokes a heady place where science and superstition walk hand-in-hand and sensuality and violence are masked by the merest veneer of gentility. ...some people are the center of their world, and others are the spokes. The center of one village was Dora, the great-bellied prostitute whose lush curves gave solace to men even as her compassion and honesty drew the company of women. So when Dora is found dead in an icy ravine, her loss impacts everyone. So, too, does it torment a young chambermaid at the Great House. Determined to discover the truth, she finds that Dora left behind many unanswered questions, along with a huge, slow-witted son, a boy of eleven trapped in a man's body. The deeper she digs, the more the mystery of Dora's life is revealed, until a terrible secret is laid bare. In Betsy Tobin's gripping narrative, a 17th century servant girl tells the tale of how she investigates the death of the village prostitute. Tobins language shimmers with psychological depth