Venus, Vanishing

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1930s
A01=Rebecca Birrell
art
artist
Author_Rebecca Birrell
Berlin
bisexuality
Category=FBA
Category=FRH
Category=FV
Category=FXD
Category=FXL
Category=FXN
Category=FXQ
Category=NHTZ1
danger
desire
dramatic
duplicity
emotional
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_historical-fiction
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_romance
forthcoming
friendship
gay fiction
historical fiction
lesbian
LGBTQ+
open relationship
painting
queer
sapphic
twists
war
war fiction
Weimar Germany
WW2

Product details

  • ISBN 9781035085767
  • Dimensions: 135 x 216mm
  • Publication Date: 16 Jul 2026
  • Publisher: Pan Macmillan
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
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Blisteringly passionate, Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell is a page-turning debut novel of desire, art, and the stories lost to the darkness of history.

'Gripping, gorgeously written . . . I couldn't put it down' - Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre

'
This vivid novel of 1930s Berlin asks what it means to make art in an emergency' - Eleanor Catton, author of Birnam Wood


Berlin, 1928. Hannah is new to the pleasures and freedoms of the city. She is a fledgling artist, a runaway, building a new life for herself in its galleries and clubs, and, at last, loving without boundaries.

But soon the party will be coming to an end. A consuming affair with her patron, Elke – the imperious wife of a powerful man – is reckless, yet life-changing, and it threatens to do more than ruin both of their reputations. Around them, people are disappearing. The shadows of something unspeakable are growing darker in the city. Hannah’s art could be the thing that secures her survival – or denies her any chance of escape.

'A radiant vision of art against evil . . . a bold, moving novel' - Megan Hunter, author of Days of Light

'Wonderful. Alive with a deep, resonant tenderness' - Elizabeth O'Connor, author of Whale Fall

'Extraordinary. I didn't want it to end' - Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

Rebecca Birrell is an art historian and curator. She is a Bye-Fellow at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. Her first book, This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century, was shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize and awarded an Antonia Fraser Grant for a Biography in Progress by the Society of Authors. It was chosen as a Guardian/Observer Art Book of the Year. Venus, Vanishing is her first novel.

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