Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
The Book of Days - 'Richly imagined and skillfully crafted' The Spectator - cover

The Book of Days - 'Richly imagined and skillfully crafted' The Spectator

Francesca Kay

Publisher: Swift Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

'At least that post-Reformation sovereignty of the word still yields novels as richly imagined and skilfully crafted as this' The Spectator
Longlisted for the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Longlisted in the 2024 HWA Crown Awards
ANNO DOMINI 1546.
In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing around her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul. As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. But as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of the village sense a dangerous freedom …
Reader Reviews
'A must read … Characters that one cares about, beautifully structured, a real page turner'
'A jewel of a book'
'Beautifully written'
'Atmospheric and compelling'
Available since: 02/01/2024.
Print length: 288 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Praetorian: Blades of Antioch - Book 6 - cover

    Praetorian: Blades of Antioch -...

    S.J.A. Turney

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Rome has a new emperor; a strong emperor. Septimius Severus, a lion of the battlefield, now moves east to face the usurper Pescennius Niger, contesting with a clever opponent with the ultimate prize in the balance: the throne of Rome. 
     
    But with civil war raging all across the East, problems abound. One of the frumentarii, the emperor’s military agents, has gone missing in Arabia, and with him has gone a list of the service’s personnel. 
     
    With just a slave familiar with the east, Rufinus sets off for an outpost on the edge of the empire, seeking the missing agent in an attempt to save all those on the list before it falls into enemy hands. A war-torn land, treachery and violence await…
    Show book
  • The Marquis of Carabas - cover

    The Marquis of Carabas

    Rafael Sabatini

    • 0
    • 2
    • 0
    A master swordsman travels to dangerous, Revolution-era France to claim his inheritance, in this swashbuckling adventure by the author Captain Blood.The French Revolution is well underway. Countless French nobles are escaping from the horrible violence and traveling to England for refuge. Meanwhile, Quentin de Morlaix, master swordsman, runs a popular fencing school in London. He may have been raised in England since he was a baby, but his French blood gives him some sympathy for these emigrés. His concern for France ends there, until he receives a surprise from a lawyer. Quentin is a noble and he has six months to claim a sizable inheritance from a brother he never knew about. To claim his fortune, however, Quentin must travel into the heart of the French Revolution, a land of chaos, mystery, suspense, and certain death.
    Show book
  • What We Did in the War - cover

    What We Did in the War

    Jennie Walters

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Can you ever let go of the past? Two women unhappy with their lives seize a chance to start over during a WWII bombing raid, in this dramatic and suspenseful novel. 
     
     
     
    London, 1944: As bombs start raining from the sky, two women rush out of a restaurant, leaving their possessions behind. Their chance meeting amid the chaos and destruction will have long-lasting consequences. Both beset by desperate problems, they take advantage of the wartime chaos to escape their humdrum lives and start again. 
     
     
     
    Sticking together, the pair live under the radar, using a stolen ration book to feed themselves and relying on a street kid's help to get by. Cecil eventually finds work, while glamorous, feckless Claude looks after the flat—or doesn't. Gradually their friendship sours and resentment creeps in. Just as Cecil is wondering whether she should ever have trusted Claude in the first place, she makes a shocking discovery—one that will expose a web of secrets, lead to an act of violence, and set the two on separate and very different paths.
    Show book
  • Condemned by Fate - cover

    Condemned by Fate

    VL McBeath

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Finding the girl of his dreams should have been a blessing. But people were watching . . . prepared to do anything to keep them apart. 
     
     
     
    Farm laborer Charles Jackson doesn't expect much from life. For the price of a few pints of ale and enough food on the table, he's happy to take work where he can get it. Until he finds himself at Chadwick's farm . . . 
     
     
     
    Falling in love with the farmer's daughter wasn't part of his plans. But when they're found in an intimate embrace, his troubles are only just beginning . . . 
     
     
     
    Inspired by real events, Condemned by Fate is a standalone, short story prequel to the Ambition & Destiny series, an epic family saga set in Victorian-era England. 
     
     
     
    If you like love stories that are more than just a romance, then you'll love the prequel to VL McBeath's engaging series.
    Show book
  • The Forgotten Warriors - cover

    The Forgotten Warriors

    Jordan Beck

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    In a land ruled by tradition and bloodbound oaths, young Ragnar Ivarsson learned of his famed father’s demise. The gods are silen, patiently observing from the shadows. Jarl Hastein demands nothing but strict obedience. And the ancient code forbids shieldmaidens from raising steel alongside their Viking counterparts, on foreign shores. 
    Alongside a secret band of outlaw warriors. Ragnar Lothbrok dares to accomplish what others fear: a voyage into the unknown west from the icy shores of Hordaland. Their mission will defy their people, their leaders, and their gods. And when their longships strike the holy shores of Lindisfarne in 793 AD, history will be changed forever. 
    Blood will be spilled. Legends will be born. And the forgotten will rise. 
    The Forgotten Warriors is a gripping Viking-era historical novel for fans of The Last Kingdom, Giles Kristian, and Bernard Cornwell.
    Show book
  • Sleepless in Scotland - Pennington Family Series - cover

    Sleepless in Scotland -...

    May McGoldrick, Jan Coffey

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
     
    Pennington family Series 
    A WOUNDED HERO...
    A WOMAN WITH SECRETS...
    A KILLER LURKING IN THE MISTS...
    SCANDAL, LOVE, AND THE HAND OF FATE...
     
    Captain Ian Bell is a tortured man fighting through grief and guilt over the loss of his sister. Now, three years later, Ian still hunts for her murderer in the dangerous criminal underworld of Edinburgh. Then one night, a young woman narrowly escapes death and lands at his feet...his late sister's best friend, Phoebe Pennington.
    Lady Phoebe Pennington—dreamer and storyteller to her family—is a committed reformer writing articles anonymously for an Edinburgh newspaper. One night, Phoebe descends into the corrupt and seething netherworld known as the Vaults. When she tries to save a street urchin from an assailant, she becomes the target of a violent attack, only to be saved by the one man she has desired for years.
    Ian's attraction to Phoebe is as undeniable as it is unexpected, and she awakens in him passions he thought long dead. Phoebe's blood burns for Ian, but when she learns that he may be implicated in the scandal she is set on exposing, she finds herself torn between love and truth. But fate is taking a hand, for Phoebe is the only one who has seen the face of the killer, and the shadows of evil are closer than they imagine.
    Show book