The Glass Demon
A Novel
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Sometimes the path to the truth is paved with broken glass.
Teenager Lin Fox is a stranger in a strange land—Germany, where her father has come on a quixotic quest to locate a priceless artifact. The medieval (and possibly mythical) Allerheiligen stained glass is believed by some to be lost, by others to have been destroyed, and by virtually all to be haunted. A mysterious letter persuades Dr. Oliver Fox that he can be the one to find it—but someone else is determined to ensure that the glass stays hidden forever.
First, an elderly stranger is found dead in an orchard, then one of Oliver’s contacts is mysteriously drowned—both bodies inexplicably surrounded by shards of colored glass. As dark superstitions simmer, Lin embarks on her own search to find the glass. As her life comes to resemble the grimmest of fairy tales, she realizes that what she must find is not only the truth about the legendary glass but a way to save the lives of those she loves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Grant (The Vanishing of Katharina Linden) turns in a spectacular mix of history and horror that expertly draws from numerous genres. Obsessed medievalist Oliver Fox moves his family to a castle on the edge of a German forest in search of the Allerheiligen glass, a supposedly cursed set of stained-glass church windows lost or destroyed 200 years before. The Glass Demon, Bonschariant, said to inhabit the windows, shadows the search from the moment Fox's unhappy teen daughter Lin discovers a corpse surrounded by shattered glass. As Lin gets to know her young neighbor, Michel Reinartz, she becomes aware of the locals' hostility toward any investigation of the lost glass, while a series of uncanny incidents escalates horrifically. Skillfully mixing the strains of a dysfunctional family with the rising terror of the supernatural, Grant has produced a mesmerizing page-turner that brilliantly depicts the claustrophobic fear of a young woman grappling with the deadly secrets of the forest and the demonic nightmare lurking within.
