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1857, Glasgow. A young socialite named Madeleine Smith stands accused of murdering her lover. Thousands wait outside the court to hear the result. The scandalous nature of the affair, detailed explicitly in letters published in newspapers across the world, has made her case a worldwide sensation. But when the jury find themselves unable to decide whether she is guilty, they render a verdict of ''Not Proven'' - and Madeleine is freed. 1927, New York. Harry Townsend, a handsome Hollywood film scout believes he has found the woman once known as Madeleine Smith. He wants to tell her story on film for the new ''talkie'' generation. Since her trial she has lived under many names, as a glamourous society hostess in bohemian Bloomsbury to the likes of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, George Bernard Shaw and William Morris. Until suddenly, in 1890, when she disappeared off the face of the earth. Could this quiet, secretive widow of an Irish labourer be the same Madeleine Smith who once stood trial for murder and escaped? And if not, what has she done with her? Praise for Lesley McDowell: ''Beautifully written, Clairmont tells the sensuous hidden story of an influential historic woman.'' Sara Sheridan, author of The Fair Botanists Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year ''An absorbing, intoxicating page-turner about a woman who deserves to be remembered.'' Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne and Atalanta
About the author
Lesley McDowell's debut novel
The Picnic came out in 2007. In 2010 she published
Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th-Century Women Writers, which was shortlisted for the non-fiction prize in the 2011 Scottish Book Awards. Her second novel
Unfashioned Creatures, about Mary Shelley's Scottish childhood friend, was published in 2013. Lesley was a literary critic for
The Herald, The Scotsman, The Independent, TLS and others. She has a PhD on the work of James Joyce and has won three Creative Scotland writers' bursaries. Her third novel
Clairmont is a historical retelling of the story of Lord Byron and the Shelleys from the perspective of his secret muse Claire Clairmont.
Love and Other Poisons is her fourth novel.
