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. And she is indispensable-until she should ever lead the king astray. She establishes herself as the king’s seer. She has the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world-of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing human nature and predicting what will happen next-that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. Edwin of Northumbria plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief. A new religion is coming ashore the old gods’ priests are worrying. In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, usually violently. It's Monday again.Hild is born into a world in transition.It's Monday and this week was all about Flavia!.Review: Hands to Hold for People Trying Not to Cry.Review: The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches.I can't wait to see how Griffith imagines her road to becoming St. There are plans to write two more books about Hild, as these 560 pages take us just from Hild's precocious and precarious childhood through her teen years. We can only hope that the real Hild was as determined, flawed, and fascinating as Nicola Griffith has written her. I think this is probably the case but, in a wonderful turn of events, it is a wonderful and engaging story too. Many critics are happily touting Hild as a feminist book. It would be easy to get bogged down in so much detail, but Griffith's lovely and observant prose moves this story along at just the right pace. The reader learns about the traveling court, the day to day responsibilities of people in the 7th century, and the tumultuous shifts between allegiances. With so little to draw from, she turned instead to research about the time period and placed Hild within those confines.

Griffith essentially had five pages of source material from a history of the English people written by the Venerable Bede. As one of the first of her people to learn to read, she realizes the power of the sword and of the carefully crafted word. She is constantly readjusting her balance between the masculine traits of bravado and violence with the feminine traits of observing and quietly working behind the scenes to make things happen. Instead, she was taught to observe others, taught to speak carefully, and to find the connections that other miss.

She was not babied or allowed the luxury of a loving childhood. From her earliest days, her mother groomed her for power and prestige. She is both incredibly powerful and horribly vulnerable. One of my favorite things about this story was the way we really understood Hild's loneliness.

Hild book review