It's 1936. Tensions are mounting as Europe slides towards another war and 18-year-old Janna is making her troubled way towards adulthood. Janna's father sends her from her home in the Netherlands to train with Egon von Botticher, an aristocratic fencing master in Germany. Botticher is as eccentric as his training methods but the pupil soon finds herself falling for her master. Botticher, however, is not all that he appears to be and Janna must discover the true nature of her father's mysterious relationship with him. A dark and animalistic novel with echoes of John Fowles.
