Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories, grappling with shame, he runs away from his home in Melbourne to rural Scotland with a piece of beta tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to use it no more than three times, Jeff – self-indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – is in no mood to play by the rules. In the 1860s, Leonora lives in the Highlands, surrounded by nature. Her contented life and a secret romantic friendship with the local laird are interrupted when her father sends her to live with her aunt in Edinburgh. But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions that threaten her sanity. A novel about curiosity, entitlement and manipulation, about voyeurism, control and self-doubt, this imaginative, bold debut asks provocative questions about identity and the boundaries of the self. Dystopian, speculative and compelling, A Superior Spectre steps into the territory of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.