Raven

An orphaned young woman in antebellum Maryland is pulled into a maelstrom of passion, pain, and occult power in this Gothic homage to the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe.

I died a fortnight ago this coming Thursday. It was a terrifically unpleasant experience—being murdered, I mean to say.

Raven Helen Allan has always been haunted by witchcraft. Since the death of her beloved mother, she has soothed herself by speaking words into spells—a proclivity enhanced by time spent with her aunt’s library of occult books. She also finds a self-destructive solace in transmuting the pain in her heart onto her flesh.

After an itinerant childhood spent first with her mother’s traveling theater troupe and then being passed around from relative to relative, Raven is relieved to finally settle down with Aunt Berenice in her Baltimore townhouse—even if her aunt spends most evenings in a laudanum haze. There she finds a long-sought sense of belonging with the family of enslaved workers in her aunt’s household, especially the brilliantly odd youngest daughter Pym. Raven’s infatuation with her friend only grows more intimate as the girls become women together. But when the household is threatened with financial ruin, Raven must set out to earn her own living.

Taking a job as a paid companion, Raven arrives at the crumbling Moldavia Manor. Her charge is a delicate young invalid named Lenore Legrand who haunts the Gothic structure like a phantom. Living with them is Lenore’s devoted older cousin Trevanion, who shares Raven’s interest in the occult and devotes his days to searching ancient texts for an Elixir of Life that might cure his cousin. Raven finds herself inexorably drawn to both cousins as well as to the secrets hidden in the shadows of Moldavia Manor. Will she find the answers she seeks in Trevanion’s alchemical texts? What is the meaning of glowing green light emitted from the tower windows? And is Raven truly narrating this story from beyond the grave—if so, who murdered her?

Gothic and atmospheric, Raven is an aching tale of loss, freedom, death, and resurrection by the celebrated author of Jane Steele and Dust and Shadow.

A Lyndsay Faye novel is always a delight. A masterful storyteller and a gifted writer, she takes us on a richly atmospheric and haunting journey into a colorful reimagining of the Poe universe that is uniquely her own. Raven is a clever, darkly funny, and enthralling tale that keeps us turning the pages, even as it explores themes of love and loss, deception, death, and resurrection. Here Faye has performed alchemy, turning the words on the page into gothic gold.”
―Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Served Him Right

Many books take you to a different time. This book takes you to another time and another world. A world you won’t want to leave. Trust me—this is an unforgettable read!”
—R.L.Stine, author of Goosebumps and Fear Street

Lyndsay Faye is the kind of gifted storyteller who hooks you from the first line and never lets go. This darkly witty, superbly orchestrated novel is both a cunning repurposing of the Poe universe and a delicious fever dream all its own. May Faye be entertaining us evermore.”
―Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye

Faye has created a lush tome born of Poe that lives into its own unique being; Raven deftly weaves bits of truth and swaths of fiction into a captivating Gothic tapestry that looks like a stormy sky and feels like a fever-dream you hope to linger in, for as long as it’s safe to do so…”
―Leanna Renee Hieber, USA Today bestselling author of America’s Most Gothic and Strangely Beautiful

Nobody writes like Lyndsay Faye. I’ve never known another writer with the ability to render in such crystalline, unnerving precision the voices of the past. If you thought The Gods of Gotham was good, get ready for your new favourite. Poe is a wildly difficult writer to mimic, never mind to play upon, but watching Faye do it is like watching an acrobat at a dark circus, complete with raven angel wings. It’s weird, it’s masterful, and it’s bloody annoying. How dare she write this well?”
―Natasha Pulley, internationally bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Kingdoms

Audacious, risky, and brilliant. Only the singularly talented Lyndsay Faye could succeed at this tour de force in voice and storytelling! It’s a literary high wire act—combining clever homage with creativity and passion, a celebration of all things Poe, and treasures galore for fans to discover. Raven is the new essential gothic—layered, compelling, witty and entirely entertaining.”
—Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of Mother Daughter Sister Stranger

Lyndsay Faye’s RAVEN is an inspired elixir of dark occultism and Gothic dread. With alchemic prose, spellbinding settings, and characters as haunted, layered, and unforgettable as those dreamed up by Poe himself, you’ll want to drink this one down in one tantalizing, transformative gulp.”
—Christa Carmen, Bram Stoker Award-winning and three-time Shirley Jackson Award nominated author of The Daughters of Block Island

Faye writes a good puzzle . . . [She’s] a person meant to write, who thinks and jokes and understands by writing. It’s a rare gift.
―New York Times Book Review on The Paragon Hotel

Lyndsay Faye is one of the most intelligent and versatile writers working today.”
―BookReporter

At once an homage to Edgar Allan Poe and a playful riff on the gothic genre . . . this blend of historical melodrama and surprisingly sweet romance is always engrossing.”
—Publishers Weekly

[A] dazzling mesh of wit, philosophy and romance.”
―Shelf Awareness on The King of Infinite Space

Lyndsay Faye is the internationally bestselling author of eight critically acclaimed novels and two short story collections. She has been published in fifteen languages, nominated for two Edgar Awards, and received an American Library Association award for Best Historical Novel. A notable writer of Sherlock Holmes pastiches including Dust and Shadow and Observations by Gaslight, she also particularly enjoys upending classical literature, as in Jane Steele, which transforms Jane Eyre into a feminist serial killer. A true New Yorker in the sense that she was born elsewhere, Faye lives in Queens with her husband Nicholas and her cat Prufrock.

See more titles by Lyndsay Faye