The year is 1742. Goody Brown,saved from drowning and adopted when just a babe,has grown up happily in the smuggling town of Winchelsea. Then,when Goody turns sixteen,her father is murdered in the night by men he thought were friends.
To find justice in a lawless land,Goody must enter the cut-throat world of her father's killers. With her beloved brother Francis,she joins a rival gang of smugglers. Facing high seas and desperate villains,she also discovers something else: an existence without constraints or expectations,a taste for danger that makes her blood run fast.
Goody was never born to be a gentlewoman. But what will she become instead
Winchelsea is an electrifying story of vengeance and transformation; a rare,lyrical and transporting work of historical imagination that makes the past so real we can touch it.
Publisher: Canongate BooksISBN: 9781838854874Number of pages: 352Weight: 236 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 21 mmEdition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
'I was riveted. Winchelsea is a great read - terrific narrative drive,credible characters,and such an elegant creation of the backdrop in terms of both time and place'- Penelope Lively
'Winchelsea and its fierce young heroine swept me away on an irresistible tide of adventure,revenge,horror,love,smuggling and high drama on land and sea. What a brilliant idea to rework Moonfleet,but add some contemporary touches to the mix. Huge fun,superbly atmospheric and thoroughly enjoyable'- Amanda Craig
'Winchelsea is a remarkable act of literary time travel: dark and gripping and soaked in blood and salt water'- Evie Wyld
'There's a wild piratical darkness to Winchelsea which is charged by the evocative and strange wilderness of its setting on the Romney Marshes. At its heart is a gripping tale: a life-and-death struggle,set in the eighteenth century yet vibrantly heightened by a sureness of visceral detail and a vivid depth of characterisation. This is historical drama on a deft and uproarious scale,and it makes for a breathlessly exciting and engaging read'- Philip Hoare
'What a story! What a heroine! What an adventure! Alex Preston sweeps you from scene to scene,surprise to surprise with all the deft theatricality and fluency of a modern Robert Louis Stevenson. I have rarely read anything so vivid or that makes the eighteenth century,with all its ambitions,terrors,desires and sheer juiciness,so grippingly alive. Huzzah!'- Adam Nicolson
'Beautifully told and expertly crafted,a moving and evocative tale of longing and belonging'- Peter Frankopan
'Wilkie Collins,eat your heart out! The novel is so very impressive and so saturated with atmosphere and rich in mystery - it flows so freely,takes risks other novels might dodge,and transports us into an entirely different world. It is drenched in a love of place and history,and a perfect record of a hybrid life'- Jonathan Lee
'The adventures of a wild,cross-dressing teenage girl and a bloodthirsty smugglers'gang in eighteenth-century Sussex. Goody Brown is an unforgettable character and her story utterly gripping'- Sofia Zinovieff
'Imagine Daphne du Maurier crossed with Quentin Tarantino,and you will have some idea of just what a thrilling,bloody and heady ride this novel is'- Tom Holland
'Atmospheric'- The Daily Mail
Alex Preston
Author of the brilliant debut novel,This Bleeding City...
Visit the Alex Preston author page
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