'Enlivens the standard tale of swashbuckling adventure, adding feminist spice ... Rich and immersive' SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH
'Remarkable' HILARY MANTEL
'A vivid, narrative-packed splice of historical fiction' DAILY MAIL
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' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'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
'A young writer of immense talent' ANDREW MILLER
'A breathtaking feat of historical fiction and utterly astounding. It is wise, urgent and entirely compelling. I was bereft when it ended' WYL MENMUIR
'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 thrilling adventure novel' FIONA MOZLEY
A Wild & True Relation : A 'remarkable' (Hilary Mantel) feminist adventure story of smuggling and myth-making
Description
Author Description
Kim Sherwood is an author and creative writing lecturer. Born in Camden in 1989, she has taught at the University of Sussex, UWE, and in schools, libraries and prisons, and now lectures at the University of Edinburgh, where she lives in the city. Her first novel, Testament, published in 2018, won the Bath Novel Award and the Harper's Bazaar Big Book of the Year, was shortlisted for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. In 2019, Kim was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Kim is currently writing a new trilogy of James Bond novels for the Ian Fleming Estate, expanding the universe with a cast of Double O agents for the 21st century. The first title, Double or Nothing will be published by HarperCollins in the UK and William Morrow in the US in September 2022. Her next literary novel, A Wild & True Relation will be published by Virago in February 2023.