The Book of Souls

A "Dorian Gray" story about the power of images

For generations, Elsie's family has owned a photography studio. Elsie loves the old cameras and the historic photographs; she is particularly taken with the portrait of the young lord Aidan Storm. Every now and then, she even tells the picture about her worries. What she doesn't know is that he can actually hear her. When Aidan's photo disappears from the album one day, Elsie is inconsolable. But then the young lord suddenly reappears. On Instagram, of all places - and then she meets him in real life.

Aidan Storm was born in 1873 and there is a centuries-old curse on his family. With every newborn, a new ghost is born into the world. Aidan sets out to break the curse and recapture the spirits, using the new technology of photography to help him. Until Aidan himself gets captured in a photo that is found 120 years later by John's great-great-granddaughter Elsie. But who has summoned Aidan and the other ghosts that suddenly haunt modern Edinburgh back to reality? And why?

Told in two time levels, the story alternates between the perspective of Elsie in modern-day Edinburgh and Aidan at the end of the 19th century. Like in Emma and the Forgotten Book, Mechthild Gläser takes inspiration from a 19th-century classic and brings the portrait of a young man quickly to life, in a modern-day story about the power of images.

• Urban fantasy story combined with a tender, humorous love story
• The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
• Set in picturesque Edinburgh
• By internationally successful Mechthild Gläser (SERAPH Fantasy Award), who has been published in 14 languages