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England, November 1370. Oswald de Lacy, Lord of Somershill Manor, makes a devastating confession to his dying mother. But will he gain the forgiveness he seeksâor destroy his family?
In 1349, Oswald, the third son of the de Lacy family, was an eighteen-year-old novice monk at Kintham Abbey. Sent to collect herbs from the forest, Oswald comes across a terrified village girl. Frenzied with fear, she runs headlong into a swollen river. Oswald pulls her broken and bruised body from the water and returns her to the local village, only to discover that several other women have disappeared. A heinous killer is at work, but because all of the missing women come from impoverished families without influence, nobody seems to care.
Oswald vows to find this killer himselfâbut as plague approaches, his beloved tutor Brother Peter insists they must stay inside the monastery. He turns instead to the women of the village for help, and particularly the enigmatic and beautiful Maud Woodstockâa woman who provokes strong emotions in Oswald.
As he closes in on the killer, Oswald makes a discovery that is so utterly shocking that it threatens to destroy him and his family. Even as plague rages across England and death is at every door, Oswald must kill or be killed. And the discovery will be a secret that haunts him for the rest of his life.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
September 7, 2021 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781643137803
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781643137803
- File size: 2448 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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September 7, 2021
The fifth in the Somershill Manor mysteries, which follow the investigations of a Kentish lord in the mid-fourteenth century, centers on one young girl's death and the disappearances and possible murders of five other girls from the same poverty-stricken village. This mystery is a deathbed confession--in 1360, a guilt-ridden Lord Oswald de Lacey tells his dying mother about what he did as a probationary monk in 1349. The 18-year-old Oswald, then a novice monk (his father's and brothers' deaths soon made him Lord Oswald), decided on his own to investigate the girls' disappearances, ignoring his superiors' orders and the threat of the Black Death, which had just reached England the year before. While the medieval and monastic background is absorbing, it's a bit of a stretch to believe that the novice monk could actually do so much sleuthing on his own. Recommended for fans of the series, who may also want to check out Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael mysteries, set in twelfth-century England and also starring a very canny monk.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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