title: Auriel Rising
author:  Elizabeth Redfern 
description: Richly atmospheric but overstuffed, this second historical thriller by Redfern (The Music of the Spheres) is set in London in 1609, where everyone, from imprisoned Sir Walter Raleigh to the lowliest wench, is clamoring for a letter apparently containing the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone"the elusive object that transforms matter into gold. The letter, addressed to someone named "Auriel," has fallen into the possession of Ned Warriner, a handsome lute player back in town after a two-year exile, hoping to see his childhood sweetheart, Kate, and the son he suspects is theirs. Kate is now unhappily married to Francis Pelham, a brutal hunter of Catholics who justifiably sees Ned as a threat to the Protestant King James. Fearing Pelham's inquisitorial zeal, Ned seeks the protection of the Earl of Northampton, a predatory homosexual who bribes his former protg into assassinating Prince Henry's corrupt chief clerk, John Lovett. To do the deed, Ned infiltrates the royal family's inner circle, mingling with the prince's scheming advisers and strangely powerful gardener while enduring the sexual attentions of Lovett's wife, Sarah, who is eager to implicate her husband in a potential coup. Meanwhile, Ned tries to decipher the mysterious letter by showing it to various Londoners schooled in alchemy; all are gruesomely murdered shortly thereafter. Only Robin Green, a young apprentice to a silversmith, eludes the murderers to attempt the recipe, but as the threat of violence looms larger, Ned isn't sure it's worth the effort. Redfern's strength is in recreating a morally corrupt world obsessed with the letter's mystical-sounding abstractions. But her tale is both relentlessly bleak and too busy, crowded with one-note villains who double-cross one another with perplexing frequency and heroes who are blank and oddly passive rather than intriguingly flawed. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  Praise for  
  Lucy Ashford  
  writing as Elizabeth Redfern
  
  THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
  
  ‘Unputdownable…[a] remarkable debut…  
  a glittering tale of London in 1795,  
  full of science, intrigue, war, revolution,  
  and obsessive passion’.  
  —Guardian
  
  ‘An engrossing read and a rich,  
  pungent evocation of the period’.  
  —Observer
  
  ‘…brilliantly handled to keep the reader guessing  
  right to the end’.  
  —Charles Palliser
  
  ‘Striking and original…a star is born’.  
  —Literary Review
  
  ‘Quite wonderful… It is Redfern’s ability to bring  
  each scene, each character alive that makes this  
  such toothsome reading’. —USA TODAY  
  
  AURIEL RISING
  
  ‘Intelligent’.  
  —New York Times
  
  ‘Richly atmospheric…Redfern’s strength is in  
  re-creating a morally corrupt world…’  
  —Publishers Weekly
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Will you keep your trust in me, whatever you hear? Will you remember we are
  friends?’
  
  Friends. Verena’s heart plummeted, but she managed to say lightly, ‘Good
  friends, indeed’.
  
  Lucas nodded almos