In The School of Night, author Louis Bayard weaves together two stories with similar themes — love, death, and the search for something of value — but very different characters and settings: Elizabethan scholar Henry Cavendish in present-day Washington, D.C., and scientist Thomas Harriot in London during the reign of King James I. While the two men trade off narration duties, reader Robert Petkoff brings both Henry and Thomas — and all of their associates — into brilliant focus.

After Henry’s friend Alonzo Wax commits suicide, a collector asks Henry to help him retrieve an antique letter that was in Wax’s possession. The letter could break open the secrets of the ancient School of Night, a hush-hush meeting of the minds that allowed scholars to discuss religion, politics, and other taboo subjects without the Court discovering them, and could also lead to a long-lost buried treasure. Henry agrees to help, and finds himself in cahoots with Clarissa Dale — another one of Alonzo’s friends — who has been having visions that may be connected to the mysterious School. In the parallel story, Thomas (one of the members of the School of Night) is falling in love with his servant girl, a young woman with a passion for alchemy, while the plague makes its way steadily toward London.

Petkoff creates two distinct narrators for the book, giving both Henry and Thomas their own careful accents, emotional depth, and individual personalities, while illustrating the emotions that remain a constant from generation to generation — love, ambition, fear, and grief. And while the story’s twists and turns don’t always come as a shock, it’s Petkoff’s expert performance that allows the intrigue and drama to span several centuries and bring the story to its emotional ending. —Blythe Copeland