The acclaimed author of The Music of the Spheres works literary alchemy in this new novel Set in 1609 London, where the quest to turn lead into gold drives men and women to acts of daring, deception---and even murder.

To Auriel, I will give the gift of gold....So begins the letter that young Ned Warriner possesses, stuffed inside the pages of a leather-bound book. Back in London after years of self-imposed exile, he supports himself by penning poems and playing with dice, and this odd letter --one of his winnings--has been nearly forgotten...

To Auriel, I will give the gift of gold....So begins the letter that young Ned Warriner possesses, stuffed inside the pages of a leather-bound book. Back in London after years of self-imposed exile, he supports himself by penning poems and playing with dice, and this odd letter --one of his winnings--has been nearly forgotten.

He has not forgotten Kate Revill, though. The woman he left behind, the woman who still haunts his dreams, has married a Catholic-hunter in his absence, despairing of her true love's return. It is not a happy marriage. And Kate, like Ned, still yearns for the passion they once shared--but discovery would put both their lives at risk.

Disreputable in appearance, Ned Warriner makes his way through the squalid streets and rat-infested wharves of London, hiding from those who still hunt him for the crime that drove him from his native land. And now an earl who knows about his identity as a wanted man has threatened him with blackmail, offering freedom and safety--for a brutal price. But the letter addressed to "Auriel" could change his dire circumstances.