Bitya, a young Indian woman disfigured by an acid attack, seeks refuge in her childhood home, only to be confronted by the restless ghosts that wander through the bedrooms, stir behind the curtains and haunt the dressing-room: the imperious English missionary brought low by his carnal desires; the narcissistic lovers Marcus and Munro savaged by their own excesses; the benevolent Father Benedictus raised by the hand of God; the vainglorious Captain Wolcot burnt for his self-love; and the divine Dona Rosa drowned in the blue depths of despair.

Each falls from grace and is left naked and exposed to the elements, which proceed to devour them. Adam and Eve, the serpent in the garden and the omnipotent presence who sees and knows all--compound these religious comparisons. Bitya, deformed and isolated, must struggle with the demons within and without to maintain her sense of identity as she stumbles on the edge of insanity. The forces of language and nature collide:

Now, burdened by knowledge, how I long to repossess that state of grace, far from the betrayals and uncertainties of the ineffectual, masquerading life of words.

Above all, the spirit of the house itself is a principle player, manipulating and narrating events through the centuries until he is driven to speech--words that will pull the injured woman back from the abyss.

The evocative tales in The Book of Shadows are threaded together wistfully and effortlessly as its narrators move between time and spheres to bring you a story of woe, passion and self-discovery. --Nicola Perry