In this immersive novel set in 1840s Britain and France, questions of identity probe at the essence of what it means to be human. A wet nurse goes by an assumed name but longs to know the identity of her father. A quarryman furtively extricates a remarkable fossil from an island off the Northumberland coast and smuggles it abroad to Paris. A sensational best-selling book triggers widespread argument and speculation-but its author's name is a secret. Another book, roundly ignored, sets forth the principle that will become the centrepiece of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. All these threads-some historical, others fictional-converge and illuminate one another in unexpected ways in the climactic revelations of this brilliant story.

Anibaddh Lyngdoh claims that she intends to introduce a new kind of silk to the floundering American silk industry. But her true reason, as her old friend Grace MacDonald Pollocke discovers, is far more personal. Grace, now a Philadelphia portrait painter, undertakes a perilous investigation that leads to the discovery of old sins and crimes, and the commission of new ones. What laws may be broken—what sins and crimes committed—in the service of a higher justice? Deceit, forgery, fraud, perjury . . . even murder? This novel thrillingly evokes a nineteenth-century America not so different from the present: a time of stunning new technologies and financial collapse, when religious and racial views collided with avowed principles of morality and law.

Catherine MacDonald is astonished to receive from her twin brother-who had apparently drowned a year earlier-a kashmiri shawl, a caddy of unusual tea, and a sheaf of traditional bagpipe music in his handwriting. When had he sent it? And why had he retitled a certain tune "Not Yet Drown'd"? Irresistibly, she is drawn to India to search for answers. With her stepdaughter and their two maids she follows an obscure trail of clues, and in the course of their journey they meet botanists, smugglers, engineers, soldiers, and artists-as well as love and betrayal. As they grow to understand certain Scottish and Indian paintings and music, they discover unsuspected truths about the man they are seeking.

Catherine MacDonald is astonished to receive from her twin brother who had reportedly drowned a year earlier, in the monsoon floods of 1821 a kashmiri shawl, a caddy of unusual tea, and a sheaf of traditional bagpipe music in his handwriting. When had he sent it? And why had he retitled a certain tune "Not Yet Drown'd"?Irresistibly, Catherine is drawn to India to search for answers. With her stepdaughter and their two maids one an enigmatic Hindu, the other a runaway American slave she follows an obscure trail of tea, opium, and bagpipe music. In the course of their journey they meet botanists, smugglers, engineers, soldiers, and artists as well as love and betrayal. And as they copy, translate, and finally understand certain Scottish and Indian paintings and music, they discover unsuspected truths about the man they are seeking.This luminous and accomplished romance is the author's first novel."

Anibaddh Lyngdoh claims that she intends to introduce a new kind of silk to the floundering American silk industry. But her true reason, as her old friend Grace MacDonald Pollocke discovers, is far more personal. Grace, now a Philadelphia portrait painter, undertakes a perilous investigation that leads to the discovery of old sins and crimes, and the commission of new ones. What laws may be broken what sins and crimes committed in the service of a higher justice? Deceit, forgery, fraud, perjury . . . even murder? This novel thrillingly evokes a nineteenth-century America not so different from the present: a time of stunning new technologies and financial collapse, when religious and racial views collided with avowed principles of morality and law."