Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes

A young Englishman is seduced by the sea and by a woman he cannot fathom. Drawn into the clandestine world of Spanish Carlist conspirators in the 1870s, he runs dangerous smuggling missions along the rugged coast, his boats carrying arms for the pretender to the throne. The money comes from a beautiful, baffling heiress whose presence transforms his reckless adventure into something far more perilous: the terrors of the heart. Conrad departs from his usual cynicism to explore the consuming psychology of first love, the way passion can make a man both heroic and blind. The result is a rare thing from this author: a novel about longing rather than disillusionment, about what it feels like to be young and absolutely certain you have found your fate in the arms of someone who remains, till the end, a mystery.