Hild

A brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: HildHild is born into a world in transition. In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, usually violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods priests are worrying. Edwin of Northumbria plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief. Hild is the kings youngest niece. She has the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the worldof studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing human nature and predicting what will happen nextthat can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. She establishes herself as the kings seer. And she is indispensableuntil she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, her family, her loved ones, and 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 medieval ageall of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffiths luminous prose. Recalling such feats of historical fiction as Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall and Sigrid Undsets Kristin Lavransdatter, Hild brings a beautiful, brutal worldand one of its most fascinating, pivotal figures, the girl who would become St. Hilda of Whitbyto vivid, absorbing life.