WILL DOWLING

NORTHUMBRIA, 1069

When the Norman Conquest leaves his abbey in ruins, Olaf, a novice monk, is reduced to a life of petty crime in Eoforwic. A robbery gone awry draws Olaf into an uprising led by England’s exiled Prince Edgar and his sister Margaret, Scotland’s new queen.

Margaret’s mission to free the English stirs Olaf’s faith – and his desire for vengeance. But King Malcolm opposes his wife’s cause; he strongarms Olaf into spying on Margaret, forcing him to betray his conscience to protect his newfound freedom.

Meanwhile, the Normans prepare an invasion to destroy Edgar’s rebels, threatening to scour Scotland to the marrow. Facing the destruction of his new home, Olaf must decide where his loyalties truly lie: with the saintly queen he reveres, the merciless king who holds his fate, or the prince who promises the vengeance he craves.

An updated translation of Amatus of Monte Cassino’s L’Ystoire de li Normant, one of the earliest and best accounts of the Norman Conquest of Italy and Sicily, based on the 1835 Champollion-Figeac manuscript.