I'm Mary Novik--welcome to my website! In About Mary, I talk about what inspired me to write my debut novel Conceit, and in About Conceit, you'll find highlights from reviews, a book club guide, readers' comments, and an excerpt. Check back for updates to the Blog and News & Events, and share the 17th-century discoveries I post in Backgrounds. I'd love to hear from you via my Contact page.

Blog

When I began to write fiction, I was drawn towards stories set in the past because I had a love affair with literary history. Erotic poetry has a particularly strong pull for me, so it's not surprising that my two novels explore the intimate lives of real poets who wrote magnetically-charged love poems. I guess you could call this literary grave-robbing . . . .

~ Open the blog


Conceit

Conceit is a plenteous, fully engaging re-creation of 17th-century England, observed through the eyes of poet John Donne's daughter, Pegge. Mary Novik's imagination leaps from ecstatic to hellish, probing the carnal, the mortal and the mystical in fascinating counterpoint. The story opens with the great London fire of 1666, expands through decades, then revisits the charred ruins for an apotheosis of the macabre. --Globe & Mail

Backgrounds Unlike Shakespeare, whose portraits are always being discredited, we have no doubt what John Donne looked like at various stages of his life since he was fond of having his image captured. He had himself etched, sketched, engraved, miniaturized, painted in flamboyant costumes, and even carved in marble for his great effigy in St Paul's cathedral in London. ~ Explore backgrounds