The Stockholm Octavo

For fans of Patrick Suskinds classicPerfumecomes a dazzling debut set during Stockholms opulent golden age and brilliantly interweaving history, romance, and intriguea story in which one mans fortune holds the key to a nations precarious fate. Life is close to perfect for Emil Larsson, a self-satisfied bureaucrat in the Office of Customs and Excise in 1791 Stockholm. He is a true man of the towna drinker, card player, and contented bacheloruntil one evening when Mrs. Sofia Sparrow, a fortune-teller and proprietress of an exclusive gaming parlor, shares with him a vision she has had: a golden path that will lead him to love and connection. She lays an octavo for him, a spread of eight cards that augur the eight individuals who can help him realize this visionif he can find them. Emil begins his search, intrigued by the puzzle of his octavo and the good fortune Mrs. Sparrows vision portends. But when Mrs. Sparrow wins a mysterious folding fan in a card game, the octavos deeper powers are revealed. For Emil it is no longer just a game of the heart; collecting his eight is now crucial to pulling his country back from the crumbling precipice of rebellion and chaos. Set against the luminous backdrop of late eighteenth-century Stockholm, as the winds of revolution rage through the great capitals of Europe,The Stockholm Octavobrings together a collection of characters, both fictional and historical, whose lives tangle in political conspiracy, love, and magic in a breathtaking tale that will leave you spellbound.