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by Tasmin Turner (Author)
In late-nineteenth-century London, Clara Whitmore works quietly as a clerk at the British Museum, surrounded by artifacts and manuscripts that chronicle the known world. Her routine is disrupted when an anonymous donation arrives: a puzzling manuscript written in Latin, Greek, and unfamiliar scripts, accompanied by a small codex whose symbols resist interpretation.
What begins as an academic inquiry soon draws Clara beyond the museum into London's restless intellectual undercurrents, where free-thinkers, spiritual experimenters, and alternative historians challenge conventional scholarship. At the center of this world stands Madame Helena Blavatsky, the influential and controversial founder of the Theosophical Society, whose ideas unsettle the boundaries between history, belief, and speculation.
As Clara follows the manuscript's trail, she uncovers hints of a powerful civilization long excluded from accepted history. The deeper she looks, the clearer it becomes that the codex is more than a scholarly curiosity-and that its secrets may place her in genuine danger.
The Codex Arcanum 1888 is the opening novel in Tasmin Turner's The Alchemical Chronicles, blending Victorian historical fiction with alternative history and gaslamp fantasy. It is ideal for readers drawn to scholarly mysteries, esoteric traditions, and the enduring allure of hidden knowledge.
