Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a rarity - a novel as remarkable for the vigour of the storytelling as for its literary ambition. Kim Sherwood is a writer of capacity, potency and sophistication - Hilary Mantel
A gripping feminist adventure story of smuggling and myth-making.
A Wild & True Relation opens during the Great Storm of 1703, as smuggler Tom West confronts his lover Grace for betraying him to the Revenue. Leaving Grace's cottage in flames, he takes her orphaned daughter Molly on board ship disguised as a boy to join his crew. But Molly, or Orlando as she must call herself, will grow up to outshine all the men of Tom's company and seek revenge - and a legacy - all of her own.
Woven into Molly's story are the writers - from Celia Fiennes and George Eliot to Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens - who are transfixed by her myth and who, over three centuries, come together to solve the mystery of her life. With extraordinary verve , Sherwood remakes the eighteenth-century novel and challenges women's writing and women's roles throughout history.
Breathlessly swashbuckling ... both full-blooded historical fiction and thoughtful literary deconstruction, both elements immaculately researched. You can take pleasure in her punchy plotting and flamboyant nautical descriptions, plus the subversive Molly's complex navigation of those dual selves - with "Orlando" a clear nod to Woolf's similarly gender-bending novel ― Daily Telegraph
I loved this tremendous book and devoured it in two days. Vividly imagined, relentlessly entertaining, rich and resonant in scope and context, it's both a thrilling adventure and a vital witness to women's voices - Emma Stonex, author of THE LAMPLIGHTERS
