The crimson portrait - Jody Shields

Spring 1915. On a sprawling country estate not far from London a young woman mourns her husband, fallen on a distant battlefield.The isolated and eerie stillness in which she grieves will soon be shattered as her home is transformed into a bustling military hospital. Unsettled by the intrusion of the soldiers, the increasingly frustrated widow finds unexpected solace in the company of a wounded officer whose mutilated face, concealed by bandages, she cannot see. Their affair takes a fateful turn when she seizes upon the opportunity to remake her lover in the image of her lost husband.Inspired by the little-known but extraordinary collaboration between artists and surgeons in the treatment and rehabilitation of wounded men in the First World War, The Crimson Portrait illuminates the abiding mysteries of identity and desire. It is a disturbing, dazzling novel - as stylish, suspenseful and darkly erotic as Jody Shields' acclaimed bestselling debut, The Fig Eater.