Remarkable Creatures

A stunning novel of female friendship forbidden love and evolution from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring. In the early nineteenth century a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils for those with the eye...From the moment she's struck by lightning as a baby it is clear Mary Anning is different. Her discovery of strange fossilized creatures in the cliffs of Lyme Regis sets the world alight. But Mary must face powerful prejudice from a male scientific establishment not to mention vicious gossip and the heartbreak of forbidden love. Then - in prickly clever Elizabeth Philpot a fossil-obsessed middle-class spinster - she finds a champion and a rival. Despite their differences in class and age Mary and Elizabeth's loyalty and passion for the truth must win out. Remarkable Creatures is a stunning novel of how one woman's gift transcends class and gender to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. Above all it is a revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship.