Lauren Owen is set to follow in the highly successful neo-Victorian footsteps of Sarah Waters and Michael Faber with the release of her debut novel The Quick in early April.

The Quick focuses on the tangled world of secret society the Aegolius Club in fin-de-siecle London as it follows Charlotte Norbury's quest to find her lost brother James. With her undergraduate degree from St Hilda's College, Oxford, two masters degrees from Leeds and East Anglia in Victorian literature and creative writing, and her PhD studies in Gothic literature and fan culture, Owen's used her academic influences to create a vivid fantastical world praised by literary greats such as Hilary Mantel ('a sly and glittering addition to literature of the macabre') and Kate Atkinson ('a feast of gothic storytelling').