The Bequest with Joanna Margaret - Ticket & Book Option

Pre-order your copy of The Bequest and receive a free ticket to our event with Joanna Margaret!

For the ticket-only option for this event, please click here.

Tuesday 11th April at 18:30

We have an exciting event for all dark-academia fans! We are thrilled that Joanna Margaret will be at the bookshop for her upcoming debut The Bequest. She will be joined in conversation by Sheena Cook. 

We will follow up on your purchase with an email with more details on the event, which will be held at Golden Hare Books on St Stephen Street.

About The Bequest

Fleeing a disastrous affair with a colleague in Boston, Isabel Henley moves to Scotland to begin a PhD, only to learn upon arrival that her advisor has died mysteriously. Soon afterwards, Isabel is informed that another scholar is about to publish a book on her dissertation topic, leaving her disconcerted and in search of a new subject.

After such a rocky start to life overseas, Isabel needs a good friend, and finds one when she reconnects with Rose Brewster, a charismatic former classmate. But when Rose reveals she is in trouble, then goes missing, Isabel's already unsteady life is sent into a tailspin. A suicide note surfaces, followed by a coded message: Rose is alive but captive, and unless Isabel can complete her friend's research, both women will be killed.

Isabel follows Rose's paper trail through Genoa, Florence and Paris. She uncovers family secrets, the legend of an enormous cursed emerald, and a chain of betrayal and treason lasting centuries. If she can put the pieces together in time, Isabel may solve a 400-year-old mystery... and save her life and her friend's in the process.

Combining epistolary elements, Gothic suspense, and an atmospheric dark academia setting, The Bequest is a gripping literary thriller that will appeal to fans of Alex Michaelides and Donna Tartt.

About Joanna Margaret

Joanna Margaret is an art historian whose previous writing and scholarly work has focused on Florentine aristocrats in sixteenth-century France. She holds a PhD from the
University of St Andrews and an MFA from NYU, where Joyce Carol Oates served as her thesis advisor. The Bequest is her first novel.