The Drowning Tree

Description

August Penrose created the stained glass 'Lady Window' to adorn the chapel of the university he founded for the daughters of the women who worked in his factory, the Rose Glass Works. Depicting his wife, Eugenie, as the Lady of Shallot, it's a mesmerising portrait that has come to embody the spirit of the school itself. But now, eighty years after it was created, the Lady Window is due for restoration. The task falls to former alumna Juno McKay. She's restoring it with the help of her friend, Christine Webb, an art historian who is researching the window for her thesis. Christine seems to have discovered some new evidence that suggests that Clare, not her sister Eugenie, was the subject for the Lady Window. But before Christine can discuss her findings with Juno, she's found dead in a boating accident that eerily echoes that fate of the Lady of Shallot. But did she drown or was it something more sinister? As June starts to make her own investigations into just how Christine died, she learns more about Augustus Penrose and his family. The Lady Window was not the only thing the Penroses' bequeathed to the world. Madness and deception also form part of their legacy...

Carol Goodman graduated from Vassar College where she majored in Latin. After teaching Latin for several years, she studied for an MFA in fiction. Her writing has been published in a number of literary magazines. She currently teaches writing and lives in Long Island, USA.

"Goodman's early promise comes to full flower in this work . . . A novel full of surprises." -The Denver Post "[A] captivating literary mystery of secrets old and new." -Publishers Weekly