Description

'What you risk reveals what you value...'

The Passion is a fairy tale about survival and broken-heartedness, cruelty, obsession and madness.

Henri had a passion for Napoleon and Napoleon had a passion for chicken. From Boulogne to Moscow Henri butchered for his Emperor and never killed a single man.

Meanwhile, in Venice, the city of chance and disguises, Villanelle was born with the webbed feet of her boatman father - but in the casinos she gambled her heart and lost.

As the soldier-chef's love for Napoleon turns to hate he finds the Venetian beauty, and together they flee to the canals of darkness.

'It's a fantasy, a vivid dream... inventive and brilliant ' Guardian

' As moving and funny as it is skilful , and reflects the author's formidable appetite for life' Sunday Times

' A book of great imaginative audacity and assurance ...brilliantly physical (and funny) detail" Times Literary Supplement

'Its concentrated, beautifully detailed prose recalls the diction of fairy tales; its plot incorporates their magic, their shrewd wit and brutality... a deeply imagined and beautiful book, often arrestingly so ' New York Times

**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**