AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST OF 2021
'Seductive . . . Gorgeous' The Times
'A fresh perspective on an age-old tale' Irish Times
'I am the queen of two crowns, banished fifteen years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three small animals, now gone. I am fifty-five years old. I am Lear's wife. I am here.'
Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear's queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story.
Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice - one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests.
Giving unforgettable voice to a woman whose absence has been a tantalising mystery, Learwife is a breathtaking novel of loss, renewal and how history bleeds into the present.
- ISBN10 1838852832
- ISBN13 9781838852832
- Publish Date 4 November 2021
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Canongate Books
- Edition Main
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English