The Alphabet of Heart's Desire

'I am nobody of consequence,' the stranger replies. 'I am only here to give you this.' He holds out his hand and in his open palm there nestles a small silver locket upon a chain. 'She asked me to return it to you, at the very end.'

A visitor calls with a gift and a message from the past...

In 1802 Thomas de Quincey, a young man from a comfortable middle-class background who would go on to become one of the most celebrated writers of his day, collapsed on Oxford Street and was discovered by a teenage prostitute who brought him back to her room and nursed him to health. It was the beginning of a relationship that would introduce Thomas to a world just below the surface of London's polite society, where pleasure was a tradeable commodity and opium could seem the only relief from poverty. Yet it is also a world  where love might blossom, and goodness survive.

The lives of a street girl, an aspiring writer, and a freed slave cross and re-cross the slums of London in this novel about the birth of passion, the burden of addiction, and the consolations of literature.