Daniel is a twenty-first century connoisseur with distinctive and often anachronistic tastes-aesthetic, culinary, and even mind-altering. When Daniel sets out to seek answers about his past in long-sealed documents, he makes a startling discovery that leads him on a cross-country quest. In the course of his travels, he becomes preoccupied with Antoinette, an enigmatic archivist who may hold the key to his search. When he discovers she may be involved with his closest friend, Roger, he comes to distrust them both. His quest becomes a dangerous obsession that drives him to the brink of madness.

Rockwell’s prose evokes the dark humor of Edgar Allan Poe and the uneasy aristocrats of Edith Wharton in this new novel of aesthetic obsession.

“With huge amounts of imagination and flair, Daisy Rockwell has written a wonderfully funny but ultimately chilling parable about the wages of connoisseurship. I thrilled to it.” -Henry Alford