FROM CAÏNA TO JEDECCA

Just a short missive to let you know that my novel, FROM CAÏNA TO JEDECCA is live at Amazon.com. Here's the blurb:

Matthew Oyd, a precocious and talented Pre-Raphaelite artist and dandy, rescues the beautiful model Tristine from the drawing room of his old art school, shattering the walls of Victorian class structure in the name of love. The ensuing romance strains Oyd's relationship with his best friend, Gussie, and further tugs at the bonds between Gussie and his wife, Elizabeth. The delicacy of each of these relationships is tested by vanity, social expectations, jealousy, desire, betrayal, and the drive for perfection.

 Set in the highly competitive and quickly-changing world of late-Victorian Oxford, the characters of "From Caïna to Jedecca" weave their way through the maze of an era where a missed step can, and often does, lead to loss and even tragedy. From high society to the steaming gutter, surrounded by the ugliness of the Irish revolution to the beauty of Pre-Raphaelite art, Matthew, Gussie, Tristine, and Elizabeth look to find a way to fulfill each of their desires and dreams. But can they negotiate the difficult social obstacles that stand in their way without endangering their friendships and their marriages? Can their individual choices be reconciled with their collective happiness? What is the true price of art for art's sake?

Become enmeshed in a world where birth determines future success, where expatriates are suspect by their very foreignness, where the lines of social stratification are clearly drawn and enforced by the tyranny of the majority, and where idealized art may or may not bring peace and reconciliation with the gritty realities of everyday life.