Virago
Virago
Virago
Virago
A ground-breaking literary historical novel by the award-winning author of Testament and Double or Nothing, the new Bond series
Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Prize for Historical Fiction
'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 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 to Hester Thrale to George Eliot - who are transfixed by her myth and who, over three centuries, come together to solve the mystery of her life. With extraordinary verve and chutzpah, Sherwood remakes the eighteenth-century Heroical novel and challenges women's writing and women's roles throughout history.
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 young writer of immense talent - Andrew Miller, author of Pure
What a writer. I was totally captivated. - Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Kim Sherwood was born in Camden in 1989 and lives in Bath. She studied Creative Writing at UEA and is now Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England. Her pieces have appeared in Mslexia, Lighthouse, and Going Down Swinging. Kim began researching and writing Testament, her first novel, after her grandfather, the actor George Baker, passed away and her grandmother began to talk about her experiences as a Holocaust Survivor for the first time. It won the 2016 Bath Novel Award, was longlisted for the 2019 Desmond Elliot Prize and shortlisted for the 2019 Author's Club Best First Novel Award.