#BlogTour The Peacock Room by Anna Sayburn Lane

 Today it's a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour The Peacock Room by Anna Sayburn Lane.

About the Author

Anna Sayburn Lane is a novelist, short story writer and storyteller, inspired by the history and contemporary life of London. Unlawful Things is her first novel.

She has published award-winning short stories in a number of magazines, including Mslexia, Scribble and One Eye Grey.

Her Mslexia award-winning story Conservation was described by judge and Booker-longlisted author Alison MacLeod as “a powerful and profound contemporary piece in which one man’s story stands for an entire nation’s… it’s a punch to the heart, a story that will haunt and touch its readers deeply”.

She has told stories at London club The Story Party and One Eye Grey’s Halloween event, Moon Over the Lido.

Follow Anna Sayburn Lane @BloomsburyBlue on Twitter, on Facebook, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Visit annasayburnlane.com, Buy The Peacock Room

About the book

A literary obsession. An angry young man with a gun. And one woman trying to foil his deadly plan.

When Helen Oddfellow starts work as a lecturer in English literature, she’s hoping for a quiet life. But trouble knows where to find her.

There’s something wrong with her new students. Their unhappiness seems to be linked to their flamboyant former tutor, Professor Petrarch Greenwood, who holds decadent parties in his beautiful Bloomsbury apartment.

When Helen is asked to take over his course on the Romantic poet William Blake, life and art start to show uncomfortable parallels. Disturbing poison pen letters lead down dark paths, until Helen is the only person standing between a lone gunman and a massacre.

The Peacock Room is the intriguing follow-up to the acclaimed thriller Unlawful Things, which introduced the literary sleuth Helen Oddfellow.

Review

This is the second book in the Helen Oddfellow Mystery series, both can be read as standalone novels. This time Helen is drawn into a disturbing world where fantasy and art collide. 

Her allegedly firm career foundations are being jostled in favour of a colleague who is more accomplished, but is there more to the man than meets the eye. Is he just playing a role and secretly harbouring resentment and cruel thoughts. Thoughts and fantasies he has found a place to live out with like minded creatures who live in the darkness.

Much like The Following where killers are enamoured by the morbidity of Poe - this book also draws parallels from the art and talent of Blake through Rintrah the Reprobate. Art inspires both love and death, but in this case it is also combined with obsession.

Sayburn Lane creates a fascinating mystery which weaves literary works and the academic world with secrets and emotional quagmires, both of which can be seen between humans regardless of the era and how famous a person is. 

Mystery in the world of academia also comes with a healthy portion of the competition, misogyny and sexism in said world. A patriarchal system, which still tends to like to sneer at the opposite gender, especially when they dare to challenge theories and opinions. The author gives readers a look into that world, whilst also giving them a great mystery.

Buy The Peacock Room at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Anna Sayburn Lane; pub date 17 Sept. 2020. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Waterstones.