The Painted Bridge

Summary:

‘I am more sane than I have ever been in my life. And yet, I look like a madwoman’

Behind a high stone wall on the outskirts of London lies Lake House, a private asylum for women. Tricked by her husband, Anna Palmer becomes its newest patient just weeks into her marriage.

Ravaged by the cruel treatments of the time, Anna struggles to prove her sanity, despite some surprising allies: Talitha Batt, a longtime inhabitant who seems to be as sane as she is; Lucas St Clair, a visiting physician who believes that photography may reveal the state of a patient’s mind; and Catherine Abse, the proprietor’s highly-strung daughter. Yet the longer Anna remains at Lake House, the more she realises that no one and nothing is quite as it appears. Not her fellow patients, her husband, her family — not even herself.

Will Anna discover the freedom she seeks, or plunge so far into the recesses of the mind that she might never escape?