Alchemy

No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller S. J. Parris is the pseudonym of the author and journalist Stephanie Merritt. It was as a student at Cambridge researching a paper on the period that Stephanie first became fascinated by the rich history of Tudor England and Renaissance Europe. Since then, her interest has grown and led her to create this series of historical thrillers featuring Giordano Bruno, which has now sold over one million copies.Stephanie has worked as a critic and feature writer for a variety of newspapers and magazines, as well as radio and television. She has also written the contemporary psychological thrillers While You Sleep and Storm under her own name. She currently writes for the Observer, and she lives in Surrey.

‘The clever twists and turns of Alchemy are assuredly plotted and Prague, a city in religious and political turmoil, makes for a powerful setting’ The Times‘Over the past dozen years, S. J. Parris’s novels… have been among the most enjoyable of all historical thrillers’ Sunday Times‘Breathless pace and acutely observed detail make for a story that confounds and surprises’ ObserverPraise for S. J. Parris:‘A brilliantly realised fictionalisation of the Babington plot against Elizabeth 1…Nimbly braiding history with suspense, this is a classy mystery’ Observer‘Immaculate… the depth of period detail, the all-enveloping sense of time and place, and the sheer gory drama’ Metro‘Sumptuous’ New York Times‘Parris’s attention to the details of Elizabethan life and her ability to create characters of depth are again on display in a gripping narrative’ The Sunday Times‘Fast-paced and entertaining, it’s a well-researched and authentically claustrophobic romp through the Elizabethan underworld’ Mail on Sunday‘Parris is one of the stars of historical crime fiction and this, her sixth Giordano Bruno novel, is among her best’ i‘Superbly plotted, shimmeringly written, it will have you on the edge of your seat’ Kate Williams, author of The Storms of War‘An impressive feat. The plot, one of exhilarating complexity, was handled with aplomb’ 'Marisa Haetzman, also writes as Ambrose Parry‘A delicious blend of history and thriller’ The Times‘A tight plot combines with subtly-realised characters and an omnipresent sense of danger … My pleasure in the vividly textured backdrop and a cracking story was accompanied by an uneasy shudder’ Daily Mail‘Colourful characters, fast-moving plots and a world where one false step in religion or politics can mean a grisly death’ Sunday Times‘S. J. Parris is one of my favourite authors – and unquestionably our greatest living writer of historical thrillers’ A.J. Finn