The Lepidopterist's Beautiful Daughter (Paperback or Softback)

Born to wealth and stifling privilege, Tito lives a cocooned life of luxury and dull Edwardian convention. Groomed to follow a career in the church, he finds joy in the unlikeliest of places: Vanessa Agnew, the daughter of a once renowned professor who studies butterflies and moths.

Yet, just as Tito wins her hand, he breaks a vow to her and a terrible secret rips her from his arms. Heartbroken, he follows a trail of bread crumbs left by his former tutor seeking his bride. His attempts to recover Vanessa take him across England and Europe, ensnaring him in a devious plot to find the birthplace of angels, led by a seductive darkness that challenges his faith and his love.

Can Tito stay true to himself in the face of evil and his own failings? Or will his mistakes keep him forever from happiness and the woman he loves?

For readers who love Susanna Clarke's historical depth, A. S. Byatt's emotional clarity, and P. G. Wodehouse's playful wit.

David Rae lives in Scotland and grew up in a world where hordes of workers spill out of factories, a world where fog and smoke shroud all kinds of creatures, a world where ruined castles, factories and houses are haunted by ghosts, gangs and memories. He lives in a world where witches have been burned at the cross and martyrs have been hung on the Gallowgreen.Since a child, he has tried to capture that world in words, poems, and stories. He has read every trashy novel, every children's book and every comic that came his way. Thank God for public libraries.He studied Botany, Architecture, Mathematics, Computers, Geography, and Ecology. He worked in a candy factory (not as an Oompa-Loompa), as a scaffolder and ditch digger. He has worked as a draftsman and as an ecologist, as a statistician and as a policy maker. He is married and has four lovely children and now lovely grandchildren. And he continues to read and to write and marvel at the world he lives in.