Ruth Valentine

The Jeweller's Skin Ruth Valentine

1946, and England is recovering from war. Change is everywhere. Even Holywell, a Victorian asylum outside London, has ambitions to reform. Narcisa Humphreys, resident Cook at the hospital, has created a life of hard work and routine within the closed community of staff and patients. She has begun an affair, but still remains detached. Now however her past is coming to light, and threatens not only her livelihood, but her hard-won sanity. 'It was almost comfort; but not enough for sleep. The animal, a fox perhaps, barked again. She thought she heard a car rattling down the lane, but it could have been a milk-float, or something older, a horse and cart out of her memory, driving away: what she had once most feared...' Reaching across the first half of the twentieth century, and from Kosovo to London, The Jeweller's Skin is a story of exile, trauma and recovery, told with insight and humour in vivid, luminous prose.