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In the absence of death, true darkness emerges.

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Eighteenth-century London - the lives of the sisters Fitzgerald, Constance and Verity, become entwined with the nearby Fowler household, charged with providing safe harbour to a mysterious baby from far away.

Camden, London, 2015, December 17 th - the lives of the sisters Fitzgerald, Constance and Verity, are consumed by the wait for this boy, who may or may not be dead. There is no way of knowing.

Deep within the savage beauty of Iceland, a hidden pool grants those who drink from it endless life. For those that have, their secret must remain held close for two hundred years, but time is slipping away, and malign forces are gathering.

And for those who have sipped from the pool, they discover all too quickly that immortality is no gift, because in the absence of death, true darkness emerges.

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´Spanning centuries, this is an exuberant, vividly imagined and structurally triumphant novel with a strong Dickensian undertow.´

Daily Mail

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Kate Mayfield is a novelist and memoirist. Her debut novel The Parentations is a work of speculative historical fiction.

The Undertaker´s Daughter is a memoir about her childhood in the American South. Her father was an undertaker in a small segregated town where her family resided in his funeral home for over a decade. She is the co-author of two additional non-fiction books and has written for The Guardian and several online magazines.

After attending Western Kentucky University, Kate moved to New York where she graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She now makes London her home.

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