SANCTUARY

The deeply moving and beautifully written new novel by one of the critically most admired novelists writing in the UK today.

Haworth, West Yorkshire, 1848. Following a succession of defeats and failures in his professional and personal life, Branwell Brontë – unexhibited artist, unacknowledged writer, sacked railwayman, disgraced tutor and spurned lover – found himself back in the Haworth Parsonage, foundering and directionless, and surrounded by his father and three sisters, whose own pseudonymous successes – allegedly kept secret from him – were only then becoming apparent.

Struggling against the constraints and strictures of these claustrophobic surroundings, and in an effort to buttress himself against the disintegration and collapse of his intolerable and desperate existence, Branwell turned increasingly to the drugs, alcohol and self-delusion which already played an increasingly large part of his short, unhappy life. His health – both physical and mental – was failing rapidly, his literary efforts were quickly abandoned, and his once loyal circle of friends and peers was shrinking fast – all ensuring that for the last nine months of his life, Branwell Brontë lived in a world of secrets and conspiracies, small kindnesses and seemingly endless betrayals, as he struggled against all expectation to restore himself to a creative and fulfilling existence.

Robert Edric is one of the most critically admired novelists of his generation. The author of over a dozen novels, his awards include the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the WH Smith Literary Award and he has twice been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Peacetime and Gathering the Water. In Zodiac Light was shortlisted for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.