The Western Wind: A Novel
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
It’s 1491. In the small village of Oakham, its wealthiest and most industrious resident, Tom Newman, is swept away by the river during the early hours of Shrove Saturday. Was it murder, suicide, or an accident? Narrated from the perspective of local priest John Reve—patient shepherd to his wayward flock—a shadowy portrait of the community comes to light through its residents’ tortured revelations. As some of their darkest secrets are revealed, the intrigue of the unexplained death ripples through the congregation. But will Reve, a man with secrets of his own, discover what happened to Newman? And what will happen if he can’t?
Written with timeless eloquence, steeped in the spiritual traditions of the Middle Ages, and brimming with propulsive suspense, The Western Wind finds Samantha Harvey at the pinnacle of her outstanding novelistic power.
Samantha Harvey
Samantha Harvey has published two novels, The Wilderness and All Is Song. She has been short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Guardian First Book Award, and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She has also won the AMI Literature Award and the Betty Trask Prize. One of The Culture Show's 12 Best New British Novelists, she has contributed to Granta (print and online), has held a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, and is a member of the Academy for the Folio Prize. She lives in Bath, England, and teaches creative writing in the master's program at Bath Spa University.
Read more from Samantha Harvey
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Reviews for The Western Wind
94 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The characters were so well developed, I felt as if they were my own neighbors. An excellent slice of times past.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Horrible ending. Did not understand any of it. I would not read this again.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I finished this book and I still don't know what it was really about. Didn't care about the characters and found the ending confusing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What a beautiful, brilliant book!Told in the first person by the priest of a hamlet that has found the body of its leading citizen/benefactor drowned. Starts on Day 4 Shrove (also Pancake) Tuesday 17th February, 1491 and moves backward in time, one day at a time.When I finished, I cleared my reading deck and took the time to read it backwards: Day 1 to 4. Just as brilliant.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A medieval Memento-meets-Rev whodunnit. The structure cleverly leads you to draw certain conclusions, but things are never that simple, are they? Critics have fairly pointed out there’s a missed opportunity to reward rereading by smuggling in more clues, but it’s fun enough all the same.