Salamander is set in the year 1717. The enigmatic Count Ostrov is mourning the death of his son, and escaping from his grief in his enthusiasm for puzzles. He even converts his splendid Slav castle into a towering mechanical puzzle, with doors that revolve and staircases that move. The English painter Nicholas Flood is summoned across the ocean to produce for the Count a fantastic book which is to have no beginning and no end. But Flood is distracted from his monumental task by the seductive charms of the Count's beautiful daughter, although he senses that there is something strange about her. As the surrealistic machinery of the castle whirrs and grinds around him, Flood finds himself drawn away from his commission for the Count, and he begins to produce a different book entirely for the object of his infatuation - a small octavo volume with just one word engraved in gold on its spine: Desire.

A very unusual and enjoyable book.

Traveling to Norway now. I hope you enjoy the book, Haugtussa!

A huge parcel was in the postbox today!
An auther I'm not familiar with, and a frontcover I really do adore.
Thank you very much!

A strange, yet compelling story.
It took me some time to get through the book, I don't really know why as I adored the characters. Especially Snow!

Left in a bookshelf.