THE
VANISHING
POINT

Mary Sharratt

a novel
They just keep coming

　　　　
充滿機智、愉悅，宛如菲莉帕．葛列格里的傳統寫作風格，只是這次這則晦暗懸疑、愛與背叛交織的故事，發生在兩位不幸的姊妹花身上，一位渺無音訊，另一人則是踏上了追尋的人生旅程。

一六八九年，舊世界英格蘭

天性開朗又好奇的漢娜．包爾斯，自小被父親以兒子的方式拉拔養大，而她那魯莽又妖嬌的姊姊梅，則是不停的挑戰家鄉英格蘭小鎮禮教的界線。當然漢娜也不是沒有自己的秘密，因為父親偷偷教導她一般婦女所禁止的通識教育。也正是這個私房小秘密，讓漢娜在前往英屬馬里蘭省的路上，與姊姊梅會合的路途中屢屢化險為宜。而梅之所以不得不嫁給遠房親戚，則是毀在自己的風流韻事上頭，斷絕了她在英格蘭覓得良緣的所有機會。

當漢娜出發尋找失蹤的姐姐時，卻驟然發現自己已悄悄愛上了姊夫。身處荒蕪且無禮教束縛的化外之地，過於聰穎、大無畏並且渴望新生活的漢娜，這對人們視為放縱不羈的姊妹，自此掙脫了社會的枷鎖。只是漢娜仍深受疑慮煎熬，在她試圖尋找姐姐梅的下落時，事態發展卻益發紛亂而糾結……

In the tradition of Philippa Gregory＇s smart, transporting fiction comes this tale of dark suspense, love, and betrayal, featuring two star-crossed sisters, one lost and the other searching.

Bright and inquisitive, Hannah Powers was raised by a father who treated her as if she were his son. While her beautiful and reckless sister, May, pushes the limits of propriety in their small English town, Hannah harbors her own secret: their father has given her an education forbidden to women. But Hannah＇s secret serves her well when she journeys to colonial Maryland to reunite with May, who has been married off to a distant cousin after her sexual misadventures ruined her marriage prospects in England.

As Hannah searches for May, who has disappeared, she finds herself falling in love with her brother-in-law. Alone in a wild, uncultivated land where the old rules no longer apply, Hannah is freed from the constraints of the society that judged both her and May as dangerous—too smart, too fearless, and too hungry for life. But Hannah is also plagued by doubt, as her quest for answers to May＇s fate grows ever more disturbing and tangled.
　　　　

■南西．荷德／Nancy Holder
MARY SHARRATT, is the author of The Real Minerva which the Washington Post hailed as ＂both lively and memorable... a good, old-fashioned novel.＂ Her first novel, Summit Avenue, was a Book Sense pick. She has taught as the Loft Literary Centre in Minneapolis and given workshops around the country on the subject of women and fairy tales. She lives in Lancashire, England.
　　　　