Published: 1 August 2018
ISBN: 978-1-925183-91-7
ISBN ePUB: 9781925183924
Format: Paperback
AU: $29.99
eBook Price: $9.99
Categories: Modern and Contemporary Fiction
Also available as an ebook from Kobo, Apple and Amazon Kindle
About the Author
Angela Meyer’s writing has been widely published, including in Best Australian Stories, Island, The Big Issue, The Australian, The Lifted Brow and Killings. She has previously published a book of flash fiction, Captives (Inkerman & Blunt). By day she works as a commissioning editor for Echo, an imprint of Bonnier Publishing Australia. She lives in Melbourne.
Website: literaryminded.com.au
Instagram: @literaryminded
Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories and grappling with the shame of his desires, he runs away to remote Scotland with a piece of experimental tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to only use it three times, Jeff – self-indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – ignores this advice.
In the late 1860s, Leonora lives a contented life in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by nature, her hands and mind kept busy. Contemplating her future and the social conventions that bind her, a secret romantic friendship with the local laird is interrupted when her father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh – an intimidating, sooty city; the place where her mother perished.
But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions that bear no resemblance to anything she has ever seen or known…
A Superior Spectre is a highly accomplished debut novel about our capacity for curiosity, and our dangerous entitlement to it, and reminds us the scariest ghosts aren’t those that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul.
Awards
Shortlisted for Scottish Saltire Book of the Year Award
Shortlisted for Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction (2019)
Shortlisted for Aurelias Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (2019)
Shortlisted for MUD Literary Prize (2019)
Shortlisted for ABIA Small Publisher Book of the Year (2019)
Shortlisted for Australian Book Design Awards (2019)
Praise for A Superior Spectre
‘This novel is weird in the best kind of way. Taking readers on a trip through time, space, and consciousness, A Superior Spectre is an unconventional story starring a flawed protagonist. Lush with the detail of its period settings in Scotland and beyond, this genre- and mind-bending piece of writing is utterly unique.’
READINGS PRIZE JUDGES
‘A Superior Spectre is an ambitious and curious venture, Meyer straddles historical drama and dystopian fiction, and yet manages to cross the divide fairly smoothly’
THUY ON, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘A creepy, erotically-charged book you’ll read in a thrilling rush and then think about for months.’
EMILY MAGUIRE, AUTHOR OF AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
‘A wild and risky novel, artfully darting between two people separated by centuries and connected by… you’ll see.’
STEVEN AMSTERDAM, AUTHOR OF THINGS WE DIDN'T SEE COMING
‘A beautiful and troubling novel that subtly explores how the past haunts the present.’
CERIDWEN DOVEY, AUTHOR OF IN THE GARDEN OF THE FUGITIVES
‘Haunting and wonderfully surefooted – a vivid reminder of what fiction can do.’
PETER BISHOP
‘A brilliant, deeply unsettling work with the unapologetically feminist rage, passion and awareness of books such as The Natural Way of Things or Margaret Atwood’s seminal The Handmaid’s Tale.’
BOOKS+PUBLISHING
‘This is one of those rare books that penetrates deep into the reader’s most secret self. Read it and hold it close.’
THE SATURDAY PAPER
‘Endlessly captivating… if you care about the future of Australian fiction, look no further.’
READINGS MONTHLY
‘Exquisite.’
KILL YOUR DARLINGS
‘In turns horrible, sweet, erotic, tense, challenging, beautiful, disgusting, solemn, abhorrent and moving, A Superior Spectre is a novel no serious reader will forget in a hurry.’
JOHN PURCELL, BOOKTOPIA
‘Angela Meyer has created a work of literary prowess that lingers in the imagination long after the last page.’ KARENBROKS.COM
‘A Superior Spectre is a fantastic read and I found it gripping from the beginning. I found myself involved in the storyline and just couldn't put it down.’ CRAZY K.A.L.M
‘The observations of nature and the wildness of Scotland through the eyes of Leonora were stunning, the book is worthwhile just for this.’
BRIDGET'S READINGS, RAMBLINGS, RECIPES AND RANDOMS
‘A Superior Spectre captivated me right from the first page. It is a fascinating study of human nature and what makes up our sense of self.’
NICKI J. MARKUS BLOG
‘A clever piece of literary fiction.’
THERESA SMITH WRITES
‘In A Superior Spectre Meyer explores the inner workings of the mind, the home of desires and passions deemed unseemly either by society, their hosts, or both; offering up through creative extrapolation, the personal insight that may be gained by experiencing the world in another’s shoes.’
BOOKLOVER BOOK REVIEWS