Join us for the paperback release of one of last year's favorites!
In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and
violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling,
their priests worrying. Hild is the king’s youngest niece, and she has a
glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a
fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages:
Saint Hilda of Whitby.
But now she has only the powerful
curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the
world—of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing
her surroundings closely and predicting what will happen next—that can
seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.
Her uncle,
Edwin of Northumbria, plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly
using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief. Hild
establishes a place for herself at his side as the king’s seer. And she
is indispensable—unless she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes
are life and death: for Hild, for her family, for her loved ones, and
for the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl
who can read the world and see the future.
Hild is a young woman
at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early
Middle Ages—all of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola
Griffith’s luminous prose. Working from what little historical record is
extant, Griffith has brought a beautiful, brutal world to vivid,
absorbing life.
Nicola Griffith is the award winning author of five novels and a memoir. A native of Yorkshire, England—now a dual U.S./U.K. citizen—she is a onetime self-defense instructor who turned to writing full-time upon being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1993. She lives with her wife, the writer Kelley Eskridge, in Seattle.
Event date:
Event address:
