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The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi
The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi
Jul 10, 2025 10:54 AM

Author:Mark Hodder

The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

The Beast has been summoned.

History will be unmade.

Freshly knighted by King George V for discovering the source of the Nile, Sir Richard Francis Burton has been made an agent of the Crown.

His mission: solve a series of high profile disappearances and – even more astonishing – locate the spirit of a dead mystic, Abdu el Yezdi.

Burton and Swinburne are back and fighting for their very existence...

Reviews

Serious literary fun as Mark Hodder vaults to the front of the new steampunk writers pack. Elaborately researched and name-checked, THE SECRET OF ABDU EL YEZDI races Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton through a diabolically baffling maze of historical possiblities -- plus there's corsets and airships. Hard to imagine any lover of alternate British empires not being thoroughly amazed and entertained

—— K.W. Jeter

Great fun, thought-provoking, highly literate and beautifully written

—— Daily Mail

Wondrous... Expertly chilling... Wyld consistently entertains, juggling the pleasures of several different genres.

—— John Williams , New York Times

Searingly controlledpsychologically fearless andbitterly funny. Wyld is a genius of contrasting voices and revealed connections, while her foreshadowings are so subtle that the book demands – and eminently repays – a second read.

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian

A rising star of British fictionWyld’s slow, controlled build-up of dread is excellent… Most powerful of all is Wyld’s evocation of a hairs-on-the-neck sense of foreboding when women interact with volatile men.

—— Francesca Carington , Sunday Telegraph, *Novel of the Week*

Powerful, intensely absorbingWyld is as gifted as Phoebe Waller-Bridge at capturing the hilarious, the excruciating and the absurd.

—— Stephanie Cross , Daily Mail

Evie Wyld’s tremendous new novel, The Bass Rock, is a powerful and beautifully written narrative of male violence and the three women who endured it.

—— William Boyd , Daily Telegraph

[A] menacing, modern-Gothic novel... Balancing a superbly controlled sense of dread with fierce anger, Wyld's intense novel is one that will get under your skin and stay there.

—— Tatler *What to read right now*

Evie Wyld is the author of two excellent novels but she moves up a gear with her third… Wyld’s superbly written…stories mirror and haunt each other in shockingly satisfying ways… Each of these separately lonely women are startlingly well drawn, yet the threads running through their lives are universalThe Bass Rock deserves to win prizes.

—— Claire Allfree , Metro

Evie Wyld's third novel The Bass Rock was...not to be missed, it's as good as her first two excellent novels.

—— William Boyd , New Statesman *Books of the Year*

A blazingly angry, darkly witty tour de force... Bracing, and as ever, beautifully written.

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian *Books of the Year*

An implacable witness to centuries of violence… this [is a] spikily beautiful novel.

—— Siobhan Murphy , The Times

Wyld is unhesitatingly brave in her writing… She has an instinctive understanding of the interchangeability between humans and nature that can border, thrillingly, on animism… Wyld’s delineation of the era is cut-glass perfectHer prose shines, even as it devours.

—— Catherine Taylor , Financial Times

[A] menacing, modern-Gothic novel…Balancing a superbly controlled sense of dread with fierce anger, Wyld’s intense novel is one that will get under your skin and stay there.

—— Francesca Carington , Tatler

[An] unsettling new novel about toxic masculinity… Wyld’s gossamer-light prose, beautiful even in its depiction of murder, brings nuance and complexity to the story… Wyld’s skilfully woven narrative will keep you turning towards a final, unexpected twist.

—— Lucy Pavia , Evening Standard

Quite remarkable… This book is equally ingenious [as her previous novels], if not more so… With each novel, Wyld gets better and betterA serious, serious writer.

—— Stuart Kelly , Scotland on Sunday

Powerful… unsettling… humorous and full of sharply observed vignettes.

—— Independent

The Bass Rock is a gripping, moving insight into the age-old issue of toxic masculinity and the sixth sense that women have evolved to keep them safe.

—— Stephen McGinty , Sunday Times

Evie Wyld’s powerful new novel…[is] a feminine counterforce to the masculine violence that pulses viscerally throughout… No wonder Wyld’s rage erupts from the page as she bears witness to the women who fail to survive and searches for ways that others might.

—— Emily Rhodes , Spectator

Evie Wyld is one of our most exciting young writers and her latest book is being touted as her breakthrough. An epic novel.

—— Metro

Evie Wyld…[is] one of our most distinctive and vital voices.

—— Stephanie Cross , Daily Mail, *Books to Look Our For in 2020*

Wyld is the most stupendous of writers, daring, heartfelt, explosive. The Bass Rock reminds us of all her power and brilliance, it thrums with an anger it is impossible not to feel.

—— Daisy Johnson

The Bass Rock is a multi-generational modern gothic triumph. It is spectacularly well-observed, profoundly disquieting and utterly riveting. Like all Evie Wyld's work it is startlingly insightful about psychological and physical abuse. It is a haunting, masterful novel.

—— Max Porter

A brutal portrait of male violence, as unchanging down the centuries as the coastal rock of the title… Cleverly constructed, full of electric scene-making, and harnessing an eerie energythe novel ends in hope.

—— Anthony Cummins , i

Everything [Evie Wyld] has published has left me excited and slightly (very) envious of her ability… And then came The Bass RockSomething extremely special… The book takes on an immense power. This is the best book of the #MeToo eraAn absolute blinder.

—— Fran Slater , Bookmunch

Vividly told and compellingThe Bass Rock isbeautifully written and powered by blistering force and righteous anger.

—— Alice O'Keefe , Bookseller

Evie Wyld is exceptionally good at the gruesome… Her bewitching third novelThe Bass Rock is beautifully written and its particular brand of macabre is all Evie Wyld’s own. The tension, foreboding and sense of inevitability are hard to shake off, even once the final page is turned. Its atmosphere is so powerful that you feel you need to go for a walk afterwards.

—— Cressida Connolly , Literary Review

A dark, gristly marvel of a novel. The Bass Rock held me in thrall from cover to cover. Evie Wyld is a gothic genius: her narrative of the violence inflicted on women throughout the centuries and the seething, female anger left in its wake left me with a deep sense of disquiet that will doubtless remain for years to come.

—— Hannah Kent

A fierce novel exploring the subjugation of – and violence against – women through the ages.

—— Hannah Beckerman , Observer

I savoured this wonderful novel; it is so extraordinarily clear-eyed and vivid, sharply disturbing yet deeply compassionate. What an amazing achievement.

—— Megan Hunter

Wonderfully subtle and magnificently savage.

—— Claire Fuller

Evie Wyld's vivid, visceral writing has long been in a class of its own – and as beautiful as it is terrifying, as moral as it is furious, The Bass Rock is her at her unflinching best.

—— Melissa Harrison

Amazingly good. The Bass Rock will fill the air around you with angry ghosts and you will be glad in their company.

—— Adam Foulds

Wyld’s The Bass Rock is her third novel and best so farthis is Wyld’s masterpiece – as majestic and monumental as the landmark it’s named after.

—— Alex Preston , Observer, *Books to Look Our For in 2020*

A bewitching and atmospheric novel, laced with dread. It reveals the haunted house of society, with its echoes of damaged and extinguished lives, but is also illuminated by beautiful observation about people, and their capacity for both violence and empathy.

—— James Scudamore

I loved The Bass Rock and found it menacing, sophisticated, magical and also very funny – the best book yet by a wonderful writer.

—— Anjali Joseph

Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock sounds fascinating… Wyld has a luminous prose style, and to see how she copes with 300 years and Scottish doubleness (or tripleness) is high on my list of “to reads”.

—— Stuart Kelly , Scotland on Sunday

Beautifully written, [The Bass Rock] is a reminder of female folklore and the power of giving words to women.

—— Stylist *10 glorious new books to buy this March*

Ambitious in scope… The physical atmosphere of the Bass Rock and its surroundings are wonderfully evoked… But it is the relationships between women in this tessellated work that triumph... I wholly recommend this book.

—— William Jolt , Tablet, *Novel of the Week*

Wyld is often praised for her lyrical prose, and The Bass Rock is most certainly a continuation of this form.

—— Julie Vuong , Skinny

[A] dark, beautiful and funny gothic family saga for the #MeToo generation… an atmospheric book that transports you within a few sentences… The tension is always building as the story takes on an otherworldly dimension.

—— Charlotte Cripps , Independent

The Bass Rock is complex, rich, challenging… Like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, The Bass Rock offers a universal history of subjugation and oppressionViolenceruns through the book like veins in marbleVivid and gripping.

—— Irish Times

A gripping look at three women's stories across four centuries.

—— Joanne Finney , Good Housekeeping

Evie Wyld’s passion for horror shines through in the setting of this novel.

—— Chiara Rimella , Monocle

Utterly enthralling… [Wyld’s] eye for human foibles and idiosyncrasy is incredibly sharp, and this novel once again exhibits her bravura way with narrative structure… Dark, disturbing and very sophisticated.

—— William Boyd , Sunday Times

[An] intensely absorbing gothic novel, which weaves together the fate of three women across three centuries. That it can also comfortably accommodate episodes of off-the-wall, Fleabag-esque hilarity confirms the acclaimed Wyld's brilliance.

—— Stephanie Cross , Daily Mail *Best of Summer Books*

Wyld's thought-provoking plots separate this book from many others on the shelves... Wyld's three narratives are artfully crafted to suit the shifting time frames.

—— Scottish Field

Wyld's ingeniously linked narratives weave a haunting tale of fear and defiance.

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

A novel of such subtlety and hope

—— Ross Raisin, author of A NATURAL , Observer, *Summer Reads of 2022*
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