When a young man is mysteriously killed on New Year’s Eve, the community’s dread transforms to terror. Once there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature that once roamed the marshes, has returned. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves the metropolis for coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year-old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend. When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one, and she never suited the role of society wife.

I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home.” -New York Times “A novel of almost insolent ambition-lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden ’s part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. Megan Bell, Underground Books, Carrollton, GAĪ Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction * Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year *A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of The Year * Waterstones Book of the Year * Costa Book Award Finalist I found myself entranced by the people populating this novel’s backwoods Victorian Essex and busy, gloomy London and the clashes they have at the borders of faith and reason, love and social justice.”

“Sarah Perry’s Essex Serpent is as intricate, sublime, deep, dark, and mysterious as its titular character.

Tina Ontiveros (W), Klindt's Booksellers, The Dalles, OR Summer 2018 Reading Group Indie Next List With beautiful sentences and characters and landscapes so well-crafted you feel you've been there, The Essex Serpent captures the imagination and manages to deliver the sense of wisdom only good literature can.” The real miracle of Sarah Perry is that she manages to do so with a completely fresh voice. Many contemporary authors manage to evoke for readers that experience of reading Jane Austen or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the first time. “If you love mystery, Victorian England, and exploring the tension between science and religion, you will love The Essex Serpent.

The essex serpent paperback