In Both Worlds

What would the man who tasted death tell us about its mystery? Lazarus of Bethany, the biblical figure Christ raised from the dead, steps forward as his own biographer in this strange, haunting 19th-century novel. Holcombe imagines a life lived in the space between two worlds: the ordinary terrors of childhood in Bethany, the dark influence of Uncle Magistus and his forbidden arts, and the shattering moment when Lazarus died and crossed a threshold no one else had returned from. When Christ called him back, Lazarus inherited not just life, but an impossible knowledge: he had seen what lies beyond the veil, and he must now carry that vision through decades of ordinary life. The novel weaves together domestic drama, gothic shadow, and earnest spiritual inquiry into a singular meditation on mortality. For readers who enjoy Victorian spiritualism, biblical fiction, or ghost stories that ask what happens after the last breath, this remains a strange and unsettling companion.