Anna, an art curator, leaves a psychiatric hospital and finds herself in an English village, sharing a rented cottage with her partner. Seeking refuge from the aftermath of past infidelities, she constructs a personal reality from the brushstrokes and histories of her favourite artworks. A chance discovery in the cottage's attic leads Anna on a journey back to the late nineteenth century and the complicated relationships of two women studying at Oxford University. As Anna's investigations blend with the students' story, and the threads of her life intertwine with those of a century earlier, she finds a way to run ever farther from her pain. But the past is not all it seems, and Anna's escape routes are taken from her, one by one, until she must face the truth of her present. All the Perverse Angels is a breathtaking novel about the nature of loss and the confusion of love, about the stories we are told and the stories we tell ourselves.