The Luck Penny

In the summer of 1849 Queen Victoria is on the throne; the British Empire is at its zenith; the Californian gold rush has started, and cholera stalks the streets of London. In an Irish rectory, his wife and younger daughter away in London, Dr John Drew finds the peace and quiet to work on a cuneiform inscription of Darius the Great from Persepolis. But now his fellow translator has abandoned him, his maid has run out on him, his older daughter has eloped with a Catholic farmer, and a murder suspect comes calling... The Luck Penny is a tale of a man and a woman and the secret scriptures of the dead. It is a tale of coming to terms with that tragedy of the death of a child. The Luck Penny, ultimately, is about the victory of life over memory.