Alchemy and Meggy Swann

To be released April 2010:  “If she could find sixpence for the carter she could return to the village and the alehouse” where her mother, bad temper and all, was not sorry to see her go. Meggy Swann has arrived at the home of her father in London. He was expecting a son who could assist him in his laboratory as he toils night and day to find the way to turn metal into gold. If he can do that, then he will have the key to all the great secrets of the world. He will be able to transform anyone and anything. Immortality will be his. The streets of London could use a little transforming too with their stench and their garbage and their crooked ways. Meggy herself is lame. What is there for her here? Will her father ever remember her name? Expect to be transported to "merry Olde England" in the time of Elizabeth I.  Expect to feel the cold and to taste the tarts.  When Meggy discovers her father's dark ways, what choice will she make?  Turns out there is more to the concoctions in the lab than alchemy.