The pursuit of William Abbey

Title:

Author:

North, Claire, author.

Personal Author:

North, Claire, author.

ISBN:

9780316316842

9780356507415

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

453 pages : 21 cm

General Note:

Includes Extras containing meet the author, an excerpt from Ghoster by Jason Arnopp and The witch's kind by Louisa Morgan (pages 423-453).

Abstract:

"South Africa, 1884. A young and naive English doctor by the name of William Abbey witnesses the lynching of a local boy by the white colonists. As the child dies, his mother curses William. William begins to understand what the curse means when the shadow of the dead boy starts following him across the world. It never stops, never rests. It can cross oceans and mountains. And if it catches him, the person he loves most in the world will die."--Amazon.

Subject Term:

Lynching -- South Africa -- Fiction.

Physicians -- South Africa -- Fiction.

Shades and shadows -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

South Africa -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction.

Genre:

Historical fiction.

Paranormal fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
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Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

A hauntingly powerful novel about how the choices we make can stay with us forever, by the award-winning author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and 84K .
South Africa in the 1880s. A young and naive English doctor by the name of William Abbey witnesses the lynching of a local boy by the white colonists. As the child dies, his mother curses William.
William begins to understand what the curse means when the shadow of the dead boy starts following him across the world. It never stops, never rests. It can cross oceans and mountains. And if it catches him, the person he loves most in the world will die.
Gripping, moving, and thought-provoking, The Pursuit of William Abbey proves once again that Claire North is one of the most innovative voices in modern fiction.

Previous books by Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August Touch The Sudden Appearance of Hope The End of the Day 84K The Gameshouse
Previous books written as Kate Griffin: Matthew Swift novels: A Madness of Angels The Midnight Mayor The Neon Court The Minority Council
Magicals Anonymous novels: Stray Souls The Glass God

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A suspenseful tale of the truths that lie hidden in the human heart.English doctor William Abbey stood by and said nothing while a white mob set a Zulu boy on fire in Natal in 1884. The boy's mother cursed him, and now the shadow of the boy who died follows him implacably wherever he goes. As the shadow draws near, Abbey sees the truth in people's hearts; if it reaches him, someone he loves dies. Where he sees a curse, others see a tool, and before long, he's drawn into service as a spy. Abbey says he wants a cure for his condition, but it's when he meets a woman like him that what he truly wants, and what he'll do to get it, starts to become clear. North (The Gameshouse, 2019, etc.) has reached back into her seemingly bottomless bag of tricks and pulled out another striking and unusual storyand this one marries an original concept with a straightforwardly suspenseful plot, making it more accessible than some of her other recent work. "Truth," says one of the truth-speakers, "is imperceptible to human eyes, because we are so caught up in being ourselves that we are never simply here, seeing, here, being, here." This is a world-spanning cat-and-mouse chase that tackles big questions about the nature of truth and whether we can ever really know one another or ourselves.True love, life and death, what's worth dyingor killingfor: It's all here in this gripping, bloody, and haunting novel. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.