Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor.’ Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery.

‘Brilliant… Atwood’s prose is searching. So intimate it seems to be written on the skin’ Hilary Mantel

‘The outstanding novelist of our age’ Sunday Times

‘A sensuous, perplexing book, at once sinister and dignified, grubby and gorgeous, panoramic yet specific…I don’t think I have ever been so thrilled’ Julie Myerson, Independent on Sunday