The engrossing and propulsive historical fiction debut from a talented new writer, for readers of Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders, Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, Lauren Groff’s Matrix, Robyn Cadwallader’s The Anchoress, Pip Williams’s The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Write your rage. Fight your battles. Win your war.

Peak District, Mercia, AD 910: a young girl, Freda, forages, farms, cooks and fears her father’s temper, while longing for his approval. She loves hearthside stories of heroes and secretly dreams of one day being able to write; her quills are grass stalks and sticks, her parchment the sky, the earth her skin. But when her sister is killed in a savage raid by the Danes and her father goes missing, Freda loses everything she loves.

Taken in by the church, her only options are a life of servitude or prayer. But the cunning bishop also sees an opportunity, and as well as teaching Freda how to write, he also uses her – the sole survivor of the Viking raid – as evidence of a miracle so as to attract pilgrims who bring wealth. As Freda chafes against the bishop’s increasing sense of ownership and control over her, she develops a friendship with the Mercian leader Aethelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, who shows her what it is to lead as a woman in a world that worships warrior kings.

Soon Freda has to choose. Does she remain the powerless, subservient quill whose fate lies in the hands of another, or does she fight for the right to create – and write – her own story?