Courting Shadows

Poster, Jeremy, Courting Shadows (Sceptre, 2003) RAE2008

Poster effortlessly transports us back to the late 1880s. Here, John Stannard, a struggling, young, big-City architect (and the first-person narrator of the novel) presents us with a retrospective account of his brief time spent in a close-knit rural community. He accepts a commission to supervise the restoration of a small village church, but he badly miscalculates the culture-shock and other obstacles he faces. What follows is a psychological historical-thriller that combines sex, death and betrayal. This is an arresting tale of a man forced to question his values and admit his failures. It is a powerfully written and fascinating first novel that asks us to consider the process of story-telling itself; the ones we read and the ones we use to delude ourselves and others.