St. Martin's Press
December 2000
On Sale: December 1, 2000
Featuring: Isobel Latimer
422 pages ISBN: 0312267045 EAN: 9780312267049 Hardcover Add to Wish List
Isobel Latimer, a writer known for her moral tales, is
trapped by the confines of her puritan image. Not a
sarcastic word can pass her lips in public. Not a single
dress can show off the faintest traces of her figure. With a
literary reputation to uphold and massive, increasing debts
to keep secret, Isobel is about to crack-everyone wants a
cut of her talent, her time or her money, but only she knows
there's nothing left to give. At wit's end, Isobel and her
agent, Troy, conspire to create a new Isobel, only this one
is a taboo-breaking, uninhibited bombshell of an author
named Zelda. An alter ego, Zelda can do everything Isobel
cannot: Zelda can speak the unspeakable, explode social
norms and unleash her desires. As a new, champagne-fuelled
celebrity, she embraces freedom with fervor. Troy revels in
the stir she has created, but Isobel senses menace behind
her beautiful, new mask, and longs for the stability of her
former life. But when she returns, Isobel realizes she has
been gone too long: the familiar is now strange. An account
of suppressed desires come to fruition, this novel of
shifting identity will leave the reader questioning the
nature of his own. AUTHORBIO: Philippa Gregory has a history
degree from the University of Sussex and a Ph.D. in
eighteenth-century literature from the University of
Edinburgh. A fellow of Kingston University, she lives with
her family in Sussex, England.