Hardcover, 625 pages

Published April 5, 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

ISBN:
978-0-374-28087-1
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(2 reviews)

In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king's youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby.

But now she has only 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 her surroundings closely and predicting what will happen next―that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.

Her uncle, Edwin of Northumbria, plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief. Hild establishes a place for herself at his side as the king's seer. And she is indispensable―unless …

2 editions

reviewed Hild by Nicola Griffith (The Hild Sequence, #1)

Hild

4 stars: loved this book, would recommend

This was a reread but it's been a long time - I remembered almost nothing of it. It is a work of historical fiction about the very early years of a woman about whom very little is known but who eventually became a saint.

I feel like I had an easier time reading it the first time though - I spent a lot of time rereading pages and flipping back to try and figure out what was going on. I didn't have a lot of trouble with the Old English words sprinkled throughout, most were clear from context, doubly so if you've read a lot of fantasy, and I think helped disconnect them from words with more modern connotations (e.g. a gesith is not exactly a knight), and it helped a lot that I had just played an online game set in a …

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