Sleep, Pale Sister (P.S.)

Before the sweet delight of Chocolat , before the heady concoction that is Blackberry Wine , and before the tart pleasures of Five Quarters of the Orange , bestselling author Joanne Harris wrote Sleep, Pale Sister — a gothic tourde-force that recalls the powerfully dark sensibility of her novel Holy Fools. Originally published in 1994 — and never before available in the United States — Sleep, Pale Sister is a hypnotically atmospheric story set in nineteenth century London. When puritanical artist Henry Chester sees delicate child beauty Effie, he makes her his favorite model and, before long, his bride. But Henry, volatile and repressed, is in love with an ideal. Passive, docile, and asexual, the woman he projects onto Effie is far from the woman she really is. And when Effie begins to discover the murderous depths of Henry's hypocrisy, her latent passion will rise to the surface. Sleep, Pale Sister combines the ethereal beauty of a Pre-Raphaelite painting with a chilling high gothic tale and is a testament to Harris's brimming cornucopia of talents. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more. Library Journal Before she wrote more contemporary books like the wildly popular Chocolat, Harris penned this dark and haunting gothic, set in 19th-century London. It is the tale of puritanical, middle-aged artist Henry Chester, who buys child-beauty Effie off the street for a few pence. She is his vision of feminine perfection-passive, docile, innocent, unsullied-and he paints her in various poses of slumber and death. When she turns 17, he marries her and keeps her drugged with laudanum to repress her emerging thoughts and desires. The story is told in alternating chapters by Chester, young Effie, and Mose Harper, a fellow artist and Effie's roguish lover, which adds to the tension and haunting intrigue. Chester reveals his sexual obsession and volatile possessiveness, Mose his rapacious albeit cynical appetites for young Effie, and Effie her burgeoning passion for Mose and repulsion for her husband's hypocrisy and sexual proclivities. Readers of Harris's later novels will see glimpses of their atmosphere, sensuality, and elegant style. Highly popular in England when it was first published in 1993 and now making its U.S. debut, Harris's first novel will resonate with both gothic romance readers and fans of her later work. Highly recommended for public libraries.-Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. Henry Chester, a puritanical and tyrannical Victorian artist, finds the perfect model in nine-year-old Effie, until, ten years later, Effie, a childlike, biddable, and sedated perfect wife, awakens as an illicit love affair draws her into a dark and dangerous world of blackmail, revenge, and intrigue