Edith was born into a different world. But her rebellious nature brought her to the seedy glamour of the music hall, where she plays the piano by night.
Oliver is an illusionist of moderate repute. But he is a man of ambition. He wants to tour the world, to pioneer ground-breaking illusions.
History and fate have other ideas.
When Edith and Oliver meet they fall headlong in love. But their children arrive as the world begins to change, as cinemas crowd the high street and the draw of the music hall wanes.
What follows is a struggle: against the entropy of marriage, against the march of time, and against Oliver's flaws - flaws that may cost them everything.
Set between 1906 and 1922, against the seedy glamour of the music hall, Edith & Oliver follows Oliver Fleck from his tragic childhood to his marriage to Edith, a fellow performer. Oliver tours the Britain Isles, pioneering illusions, trying to build a life for his young family. But history and fate have other ideas.
Spanning the British Isles and key moments of the 20th century, Edith & Oliver is as epic and moving as it is intimate and lyrical.
A serious-minded novel (novella really) which treats a familiar and quintessential human predicament with poetry, sensitivity and no little skill, not least in including a magical and unexpected coda over which hovers the eponymous Ghost Moth
