The Asylum, John Harwood
The Asylum, John Harwood
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

The Asylum

Author: John Harwood

Narrator: Rosalyn Landor

Unabridged: 10 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/21/2013


Synopsis

A brilliant new Gothic thriller from the acclaimed author ofThe Ghost WriterandThe Sance Confused and disoriented, Georgina Ferrars awakens in a small room in Tregannon House, a private asylum in a remote corner of England. She has no memory of the past few weeks. The doctor, Maynard Straker, tells her that she admitted herself under the name Lucy Ashton the day before and then suffered a seizure. When she insists he has mistaken her for someone else, Dr. Straker sends a telegram to her uncle, who replies that Georgina Ferrars is at home with him in London: Your patient must be an imposter. Suddenly her voluntary confinement becomes involuntary. Who is the woman in her uncles house? And what has become of her two most precious possessions, a dragonfly pin left to her by her mother and a journal that contains the only record of those missing weeks? Georginas perilous quest to free herself takes her from a cliffside cottage on the Isle of Wight to the secret passages of Tregannon House and into a web of hidden family ties on which her survival depends. Here is another delicious read from the author praised by Ruth Rendell as having a gift for creating suspense, apparently effortlessly, as if it belongs in the nature of fiction.

About John Harwood

John Harwood is political editor of the Wall Street Journal and author of the Journal’s “Washington Wire” column. He offers political analysis on NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s Newsnight, and PBS’s Washington Week in Review, among other programs.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Heidi

I didn't enjoy The Asylum, a historical fiction about a woman who wakes up in an asylum with memories that don't match the identity that the staff have assigned to her. It's probably just me. I was listening to the audiobook on my way to and from work, so I took this story in pieces rather than all a......more

This might have been a better experience if Fingersmith and Sarah Waters didn't exist. But they do. And the complexity of writing and emotion and character development here pale in comparison. Probably not helped by the fact that the audiobook narrator, Rosalyn Landor, does better at voicing seconda......more

Goodreads review by Blair

Goodreads tells me I have had this, John Harwood's third novel, on my wishlist since October last year. So obviously, when I received an ARC of The Asylum I immediately got stuck into it - despite the frustratingly late UK release date of 20th June (it comes out in May in the US) - and I couldn't pu......more