Books
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The Baker’s Alchemy
In a corner of old Poland, near a great forest touched by magic, a baker receives a secret to help his ailing marriage. Ignacy Wadowski has taken a new and much younger wife, and while Jadwiga is attentive and dutiful, she hasn’t allowed him into her bed. With the help of a healer from the forest enchantment comes, but when things start to go wrong there is also a price to pay.
In a marvel of plotting, a spiral of double-identity comedy and moral conundrums which require the invention of photography, a Count’s soirée, a squad of Cossacks and a balloon ride to Rome to sort them out, The Baker’s Alchemy brings charm and triumph again to the institution of marriage.
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The Optimist
The Optimist is an Australian love story: about Chris Brennan, a brilliant shambolic young man, Mary Cecilia the servant girl, and the eligible but enigmatic Hilda Monahan.
In this tender tragicomedy John Stephenson recreates a bustling world of tipsy priests and hearty landowners, of chaperones, picnics and parties in an age where sexual desire is ruled by class and creed.