Mozart's Vienna. A crucible for scientific experimentation and courtly intrigue, as Europe's finest minds vie for imperial favour. In a chaotic private hospital that echoes with the shrieks of hysterical patients, Franz Anton Mesmer is developing a series of controversial cure-alls for body and mind.

When asked to help restore the sight of a blind musical prodigy sponsored by the Empress herself, he senses that fame, even immortality, is within his grasp. But what if the girl's blindness is the source of her fragile talent? Mesmer knows he cannot treat her without first gaining her trust: with his methods already the subject of salacious gossip, will their intimacy result in scandal?

Alissa Walser is a writer, translator and painter. She is the author of three volumes of short stories. Mesmerized, her first novel, was awarded the Spycher Literaturpreis in 2010.

Jamie Bulloch's translations include Ruth Maier's Diary, Portrait of a Mother as a Young Women by F. C. Delius, and novels by Paulus Hochgatterer and Daniel Glattauer.