A Changeling Casebook
L M Jones
Type: Beta project
Genre: Historical fiction, literary, magical realism
Word count: 94,000
Warnings: Graphic violence, swearing
In 1857 London, widowed Dr. William Hood fights to reform ‘Bedlam’ Hospital as patient Richard Dadd unsettles him with eerie fairy paintings. In modern‑day London, troubled teen Bridget is on her last warning just as local children begin to vanish. When her baby cousin Fay is threatened, Bridget and Hood’s worlds converge inside the mysteries hidden in Dadd’s art.
In 1857 London, Dr. William Hood, newly widowed and determined to reform the notorious ‘Bedlam’ Hospital, finds his work unsettled by a patient whose strange, fairy‑haunted paintings hint at forces beyond medicine. In the present day, Bridget is a teenager barely holding her life together. Plagued by dissociative episodes and unnerved by a new school counselor who seems to know more than he should, she feels an inexplicable tug toward a past she’s never lived. As children go missing and her baby cousin Fay is placed in danger, Bridget’s visions sharpen into something impossible to ignore. Across two centuries, Hood and Bridget are drawn toward the same uncanny source: Ricahrd Dadd’s fairy paintings. When their realities finally collide, Bridget must face a truth that reshapes everything she believes about herself, and decide how far she’ll go to protect the people she loves.
I’m a teacher with a background in theatre, folklore, and creative writing, and much of my work has been with students who feel unseen or misunderstood—an experience that shaped my writing. After Covid, I became a full time nomad, travelling through housesits and volunteering. On the Isle of Skye, surrounded by myth and wild landscape, I rediscovered the folklore that inspired this novel. This book grew from that blend of lived experience, lost histories, and the question of what happens to the children who slip through society’s cracks.
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