Cover of The Abbess of Whitby: a Novel of Hild of Northumbria

The Abbess of Whitby: a Novel of Hild of Northumbria

The dramatic story of a seventh-century evangelist

Chosen as Eostre s handmaid, Hild will serve the fertility goddess for a year before being wed. Her future is predictable until King Edwin claims her as kin and she learns that her father was murdered.

Read more

Her first love is given a command in Edwin s forces and vanishes from her life, wed to her sister. The court is baptized, ending the old religion and Hild s role. Life looks bleak. She can t stop wondering who killed her father.

Suspecting Edwin, she challenges him, only to be married off to safeguard his northern frontier. Struggling in a loveless marriage, she is intrigued by the Iona priests making pilgrimages to spread Christ s love. When home and family are lost in Oswy s sack of Edinburgh, she finds herself in enemy hands, but meets the charismatic Aidan.

Inspired and guided by him, she builds communities to live and teach Christ s love. She attracts followers. Even her old enemy, King Oswy, entrusts his child to her, gives her Whitby, and seeks her help to reconcile divisions in his kingdom.

She never ceases battling against old superstitions resurrected by storm, plague, and solar eclipse, but at last she receives a bishop s blessing from a man she trained herself.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 352 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Abbess of Whitby: a Novel of Hild of Northumbria? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Abbess of Whitby: a Novel of Hild of Northumbria. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Sons of the Wolf Shares historical fiction, anglo saxon, England
  2. Oswald: Return of the King Shares historical fiction, fiction, England
  3. Edwin: High King of Britain Shares historical fiction, fiction, England
  4. Myself as Witness Shares historical fiction, fiction, England

“People who read The Abbess of Whitby: a Novel of Hild of Northumbria tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Day of Atonement: A Novel of the Maccabean Revolt
  2. The Fragment
  3. Death on Lindisfarne
  4. The Scroll

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction about christian), start with these.”

  1. The Passionate Brood
  2. Hodd
  3. The Corner That Held Them
  4. Naked: A Novel of Lady Godiva

“If it was the England that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Houses In Between
  2. Half the World in Winter
  3. The Book of Dreams
  4. Imposture

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Handmaid
  2. Highland Blessings
  3. Brigid: History, Mystery, and Magick of the Celtic Goddess
  4. Catholicism Answer Book