The Essex Serpent

Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent is set in England in 1893. Cora Seaborne has been widowed by the death of her wealthy and abusive husband and decides to leave behind her London society life and its trappings, taking up amateur palaeontology and moving to a village in Essex with Francis, her son, and her companion Martha. There an old rumour has revived: that the Essex Serpent, a creature from local legend, has returned to the marshes. Cora is intrigued, and her own view is that the stories may describe an undiscovered species rather than anything supernatural.

The local vicar, William Ransome, is certain that the reports are superstition and that something more ordinary and more troubling lies behind them, and the two of them argue over what nature and faith can each account for while the parish watches and takes sides. Their disagreement runs alongside the ordinary business of the village and of Cora's household, and alongside the friendships and obligations they both carry from London.

The Essex Serpent was Perry's second novel. It came out in the United Kingdom on 27 May 2016 through Serpent's Tail, Profile Books' literary imprint, and it received the Costa Book Award and was named Waterstones Book of the Year.