A rich, painterly story, set against a backdrop of the Pre Raphaelite artists of late Victorian Britain. I have always loved their paintings, with their almost photographic detail and the facility of telling a story in one pictorial frozen moment.

Joanne Harris’s plot weaves together a rich tapestry, whose threads include art, poetry, ghosts, reincarnation, lust, betrayal and madness. She has written a book that could be, should be painted – perhaps in part already has – Holman Hunt’s “The Awakening Conscience” could easily be a portrayal of Mose Harper.

Mose Harper is the artist to whom Effie, our heroine, turns, after her stern husband Henry Chester, becomes more autocratic father than companion. The reason for his coldness towards her? Basically sex, or rather her sexuality. Henry has nurtured Effie since she was a prepubescent child, groomed her as a model, indeed the only model, for his paintings. He has educated her, paid for a tutor, chosen suitable pursuits for her (embroidery and the reading of improving books, but certainly not to write or paint herself). At the age of 17, she became his wife. And then Henry discovered he had married a woman, not a little girl. He finds her eagerness in the marriage bed shameful, and his conscience tells him he has contaminated her innocence. Her miscarriage serves only remind him further that she is a woman, not a little girl, and he hardens his attitude, demanding that she call him Mr. Chester, banning her from all but the most inane pursuits, and dosing her with laudanum to keep her compliant and quiet.

Effie finds refuge in two kinds of experience – physical, and spiritual. The physical relationship with Mose Harper is an outlet for the sexuality that her husband refuses to acknowledge. Mose is an opportunist, a rogue, a philanderer and manipulative, while acknowledging that Effie does have a certain attraction that other women have not held.

For her part, Effie is in his thrall, finding excitement in the forbidden relationship and its fulfilment of her physical desires. However, to my mind, it is the spiritual experiences she has which save her from simply exchanging the dominance of one man for another. She finds that she is able to escape her body, and when in this state, can travel seemingly across time and space. Gradually it becomes apparent that she is not alone in these sojourns – that she is being joined by Fanny, a brothel keeper, whose young daughter Marta was murdered some years before. Fanny is an acquaintance of Mose, and of Henry, both of whom visit her establishment. Fanny sees a resemblance to Marta in Effie, and she is the third character to manipulate her, this time to try and find out who killed Marta.