Billie's Kiss
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:25th May '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
'The Vintner's Luck heralded the arrival of a beguiling writer - Billie's Kiss is just as vividly written, and is an intelligent mix of history of relish for character' Sunday Times 20021018
In the spring of 1903 a ship explodes as it docks on the island, drowning many of the passengers and crew in the icy waters of Stolnsay harbour. Young, strawberry-blond-haired Billie Paxton is among the only survivors. Clumsy, illiterate and suddenly alone, Billie will not say why, before the explosion, she jumped from ship to shore.With an Edwardian twist on The Tempest, and all the surprising, earthy and magical qualities of The Vintner's Luck, Knox's irresistible new novel is set on the remote, divided Scottish island of Kissack and Killing, one half of which looks historically and geographically towards Catholic Ireland, the other towards the Protestant north and Scandinavia. In the spring of 1903 a ship explodes as it docks on the island, drowning many of the passengers and crew in the icy waters of Stolnsay harbour. Young, strawberry-blond-haired Billie Paxton is among the only survivors. Clumsy, illiterate and suddenly alone, Billie will not say why, before the explosion, she jumped from ship to shore, and so falls under the immediate suspicion of her fellow passenger, Murdo Hesketh and his cousin and employer, Lord Hallowhulme, who owns the island - and has controversial plans for improving the lives of its inhabitants. Gloriously inventive and vividly atmospheric, Billie's Kiss conjures up a way of life hurtling towards a brave new world, in an enchanting novel that combines a strange, sexy love story with an Edwardian mystery, bringing together murder and eugenics, progress, prejudice and the loss of innocence.
ISBN: 9780099541943
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 17mm
Weight: 203g
288 pages