The Cabochon
A divided stone, divided lives.
A bond that refuses to break.
Set against the gritty, heart-pounding backdrop of London in 1724, The Cabochon is a
sweeping historical novel of survival, identity, and the fierce, unyielding power of a mother’s
love.
At the centre of the story lies a simple object — a cabochon pendant, split in two. One half is
fastened to an infant as his mother is forced to abandon him to a life of workhouses, servitude
and poverty. The divided cabochon is the only key to the child’s true identity, a symbol of hope,
loss, and destiny.
A City of Shadows, Secrets and Survival
Eighteenth-century London is alive with noise, filth and contradiction: a melting pot of cultures, opportunity, exploitation and fear.
Beneath its thriving markets and rising merchant class, a violent underworld flourishes — ruled by the infamous Jonathan Wild, self-appointed Thief-Taker General, whose corruption reaches from the rookeries to the aristocracy.
It is in this world that Jack Flint, apprentice locksmith, fights to carve out a life. Desperate to escape his fate, he meets and falls in love with a mysterious Member of Parliament, in an age when such love was a hanging offence. Jack becomes embroiled by the MP in the hunt to bring down Jonathan Wild. In the process, he is propositioned by the richest man in England, introduced to the bawdy world of molly houses, befriends a notorious prostitute and encounters Daniel Defoe, one of the great literary figures of the age.
A Mother Who Cannot Forget
Across London, Mary Sheppard has known more grief than most can bear. She has lost all five of her children, most recently the notorious criminal Jack Sheppard. Hanged in front of the largest crowd London has ever seen, Jack Sheppard is popular with the masses after four astonishing prison breaks. Three of Mary’s other children succumbed to poverty, crime and disease. But there is the smallest chance that her fifth child may have survived. Without the aid of a cabochon or any other token, Mary sets off through the hostile streets of London to search for her lost child.
The odd couple
Jack Flint and Mary Sheppard are thrown together in the hunt for Jonathan Wild. Jack pursues him in the name of love, Mary for revenge against the man who hanged her famous son. An
unlikely couple who take an instant dislike to each other, Mary and Jack must learn to work together in their search for truth and justice.
A Story for Those Who Believe Life is for the Taking
The Cabochon is a story of:
- The tumult of life in 18th century London
- The search for lost family
- The forbidden love between two men
- The fight against corruption
- The insistence on hope in a city designed to crush dreams
Meticulously researched and emotionally charged, Matthew Saxton’s debut novel brings to
life the clamour of London with its taverns and palaces, Turkish baths and molly houses. A
London of constant aspiration for something better in life.