The Purveyor of Enchantment

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'Marika Cobbold is an exceptional novelist'
The Observer

'Wonderfully funny, with a strong undertow ... a joy to read.'
Deborah Moggach

'I strongly recommend The Purveyor of Enchantment'
Alice Thomas Ellis, Daily Mail

Why, are we so worried, women in particular? In the western developed world we have never had it easier; we live longer healthier, wealthier lives than any previous generation, and yet it seems that most of us also worry more. We worry about our health, and our children, about crime and about growing old and anything and everything in between.

That question gave me the idea for The Purveyor of Enchantment and its heroine, Clementine Hope, researcher of fairytales and world class worrier.

Clementine is newly divorced, thirty- something, and sharing her house with her much younger half sister Ophelia. 'Have you ever wondered,' Clementine asks her sister, 'why all the females in our family are named after women who died young?'

And when Ophelia, in turn, asks Clementine if there's anything she is not frightened of, Clementine has to think for a while before replying, 'Doris Day.'

Then, in the midst of a real crisis, Clementine feels almost relieved; the disaster she has so long predicted had finally occurred. Liberated, she turns from victim to heroine, slays her personal dragon of fears and rescues her own Prince Charming.