Author(s): Karen Maitland

Fiction

The Plague Charmer, by Karen Maitland, Queen of the Dark Ages and bestselling author of Company of Liars, will chill and delight fans of C.J. Sansom and Graeme Macrae Burnet's His Bloody Project in equal measure. 'A dark read ...fear and hysteria are portrayed with claustrophobic skill' The Times Riddle me this: I have a price, but it cannot be paid in gold or silver. 1361. Porlock Weir, Exmoor. Thirteen years after the Great Pestilence, plague strikes England for the second time. Sara, a packhorse man's wife, remembers the horror all too well and fears for safety of her children. Only a dark-haired stranger offers help, but at a price that no one will pay. Fear gives way to hysteria in the village and, when the sickness spreads to her family, Sara finds herself locked away by neighbours she has trusted for years. And, as her husband - and then others - begin to die, the cost no longer seems so unthinkable. The price that I ask, from one willing to pay...A human life.