Etheldreda by Moyra Caldecott is now available much more widely and in the full range of our formats. All the usual eBookstores (see the list in the right-hand column) will be carrying it, whereas it could only previously be found at a couple of retailers. Samplers are available from the Etheldreda webpage.
The book is a fictionalized retelling of the life of Etheldreda, the seventh century Anglo-Saxon saint, written in the exciting and believable style for which Moyra Caldecott is so renowned. As one critic has said about her work: “…the author is so immersed in her subject that no trace of fantasising or contrivance is apparent. Like Joan Grant, she lives her work. Because it is so well done it is believable…” (The Glasgow Herald).
The blurb goes something like this…
Etheldreda, Princess of East Anglia, Queen of Northumbria and Abbess of Ely, was a remarkable woman who lived in restless, violent times when old beliefs were dying and new ones were struggling to emerge. Pagan clashed with Christian as the seven kingdoms of the Germanic tribes warred against each other and against the native Celts. Occasionally an uneasy peace was bought by the skilful use of the ‘diplomatic marriage’, and twice Etheldreda, though vowed to chastity, submitted to marriage for political reasons. When her second husband refused to accept the ‘arrangement’ between them, she fled south to the Island of Ely. But this is not just the story of a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon saint. It is about the general human struggle to comprehend the enigma of existence and to come to terms with Christ’s God, faced as we are by a violent and cruel world. This edition also contains several pages of chronology, genealogy, place names, notes and a map.
