Blog tour: The Turnglass

Welcome to the blog tour for The Turnglass by Gareth Rubin!

More about the book…

Imagine you’re holding a book in your hands. It’s not just any book though. It’s a tête-bêche novel, beloved of nineteenth-century bookmakers. It’s a book that is two books: two intertwined stories printed back-to-back. Open the book and the first novella begins. It ends at the middle of the book. Then flip the book over, head to tail, and read the second story in the opposite direction. Both covers are front covers; and it can be read in either direction, or in both directions at once, alternating chapters, to fully immerse the reader in it.

1880s England. On the bleak island of Ray, off the Essex coast, an idealistic young doctor, Simeon Lee, is called from London to treat his cousin, Parson Oliver Hawes, who is dying. Parson Hawes, who lives in the only house on the island – Turnglass House – believes he is being poisoned. And he points the finger at his sister-in-law, Florence. Florence was declared insane after killing Oliver’s brother in a jealous rage and is now kept in a glass-walled apartment in Oliver’s library. And the secret to how she came to be there is found in Oliver’s tête-bêche journal, where one side tells a very different story from the other.

1930s California. Celebrated author Oliver Tooke, the son of the state governor, is found dead in his writing hut off the coast of the family residence, Turnglass House. His friend Ken Kourian doesn’t believe that Oliver would take his own life. His investigations lead him to the mysterious kidnapping of Oliver’s brother when they were children, and the subsequent secret incarceration of his mother, Florence, in an asylum. But to discover the truth, Ken must decipher clues hidden in Oliver’s final book, a tête-bêche novel – which is about a young doctor called Simeon Lee . . . 

More about the author…

Gareth Rubin writes about social affairs, travel and the arts for British newspapers. In 2013 he directed a documentary about therapeutic art at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London ('Bedlam'). His books include The Great Cat Massacre, which details how the course of British history has been changed by people making mistakes; Liberation Square, a thriller set in Soviet-occupied London; and The Winter Agent, a thriller set in Paris in 1944. He read English Literature at the University of St Andrews and trained at East 15 Acting School.

My impressions…

Oh, where to begin? And I don’t just mean that I have no idea how to review this splendid book in a way that portrays exactly how clever it is. I also, mean, quite literally, that deciding how to read this tête-bêche novel is the first hurdle that any reader will encounter! The two stories can be read as standalone mysteries, one after the other. Or they can be read at the same time, alternating them chapter by chapter. It's entirely up to you! I wasn’t brave enough for the latter option and decided to read the novel set in the 1880s first. I am happy with my choice, but I read reviews of people choosing different paths, and they all sound valid. Once you’re comfortably settled with the book in your hands, what you will find is a cleverly plotted mystery with intriguing characters and plenty of secrets to uncover. This book is a unique experience that I urge you to join!

Three words to describe it. Clever. Atmospheric. Twisty.

Do I like the cover? I love it! Plus, there’s two of them!

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, but they all sound intriguing.