When Charles Sainte-Beuve, an ambitious French journalist, meets Victor Hugo, a young writer on the verge of fame, he finds himself in a world of great passions, a world where words can become swords. But, to Charles’ surprise, he is more attracted to Victor’s long-suffering wife, Adèle. When the two lovers create a scandal in Paris, Victor exacts his price for betrayal. Set during the tumultuous reign of Napoleon III, and sweeping from France to the Channel Islands, to Halifax and back, The Reinvention of Love draws a rich portrait of the old city. Towering over all is the enormous talent of Victor Hugo, who is rapidly becoming the voice of France to the world.

Coventry opens on the fateful evening of November 14, 1940, when from her post as a fire-watcher on the roof of Coventry Cathedral, Harriet watches the waves of German bombers approach. As the city is consumed by firestorms, Harriet flees alongside a young fire-watcher named Jeremy, in search of safety and Jeremy’s mother, Maeve. But Maeve has escaped to the countryside, and when she and Harriet finally unite, it is Jeremy they hope to find alive.

Inspired by the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron, Afterimage is a provocative, passionate, yet delicate Victorian novel. When the young Irish maid Annie Phelan arrives at the country home of Isabelle and Eldon Dashell, she is swept into a world of artistic ambitions and hidden passions. But she also discovers a marriage that has grown distant and two people who see her as a blank slate upon which to project their own desires and failed dreams.

HELEN HUMPHREYS’ last novel, The Reinvention Of Love, was a national bestseller. Coventry was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. Humphreys won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Prize for Afterimage and the Toronto Book Award for Leaving Earth. Her much-loved novel The Lost Garden was a Canada Reads selection. The recipient of the Harbourfront Festival Prize for literary excellence, Humphreys lives in Kingston, Ontario.

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