First published 1997
A fifty-eight-year-old woman boards a train and encounters an enigmatic figure who calls himself the Illusionist. Their meeting transforms her quiet existence into something unexpectedly sweet and intoxicating. She discovers a talent she never knew she possessed and writes her first novel. The book catapults her to sudden literary fame, thrusting her into a world she never anticipated. Success arrives with complications she could not have foreseen. Her newfound celebrity status reshapes every aspect of her daily reality. The woman who once lived in comfortable obscurity must now navigate the demands and pressures that accompany public recognition. As her circumstances shift dramatically, she grapples with the price of achievement and the ways that fortune can alter not just external circumstances but the very fabric of identity itself.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, transformation
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
218 pages · Paperback · Minerva