The Western Wind - Hardcover

"My Ancient Mariner novel, the book I’m destined to traipse around fervently pressing into people’s hands . . . [The Western Wind is a] breathtaking exploration of guilt, communal and individual, secrecy and power . . . It made me gasp, and when I’d finished it, I started it again." (Alex Clark Times Literary Supplement **Books of the Year 2018**)

"Beautifully rendered, deeply affecting, thoroughly thoughtful" (New York Times)

"A rich and sumptuous delight . . . Even the most glowing reviews of [Samantha Harvey's] work have tended to be accompanied by a rueful acknowledgement of how underrated she is. The Western Wind will surely mean that she’s not underrated anymore." (James Walton Daily Telegraph)

"A wonderful creation . . . less like reading a novel and more akin to time travel ― something I’ve only previously encountered in the work of Hilary Mantel." (Melissa Harrison Financial Times)

"So ingenious in its plotting and characterisation that it begs to be read twice – the second reading a confirmation of what is slowly, tantalisingly revealed in the first. *****" (Eithne Farry Express)

"The Western Wind is an extraordinary, wise, wild and beautiful book – a thrilling mystery story and a lyrical enquiry into ideas of certainty and belief. Surprising, richly imagined, gloriously strange – the best kind of fiction." (Joanna Kavenna)

"Harvey is up there with the best writers working today. Here she makes the medieval world feel as relevant and pressing as tomorrow morning because - as always - she captures the immutable stuff of the human condition." (Nathan Filer)

"Set in the 1400s but never feeling dusty or distant, this astonishing book is at once a rollicking mystery and a profound meditation on faith and existence." (Alex Preston Observer **The Best Fiction for 2018**)

"This is a real winner for lovers of intelligent historical fiction, a pleasure to read and original. If you like the idea of a contemplative medieval murder mystery, an apparently meandering tale that actually is always on point, this is for you. The Western Wind is beautifully alive with period detail and re-imagined rustic life. Yet, it feels very modern because the themes are universal and current. The world that Harvey has created is vivid, earthy, dark, mysterious, superstitious and wondrous. The story intelligent, well plotted, thought provoking and very human. The prose is silky, light and enveloping. All in all, a treat." (Paul Burke Nudge)

"[Harvey’s] prose is as rich as ever, her structures clever and efficient . . . we daren’t put the book down ... it’s a historical novel full of the liveliness and gristle of the period it depicts; an absorbing mystery with an unpredictable flurry of twists in its last few pages; a scarily nuanced examination of a long-term moral collapse; a beautifully conceived and entangled metaphor for Britain’s shifting relationships with Europe. But most of all it’s a deeply human novel of the grace to be found in people." (M John Harrison Guardian)

15th century Oakham, in Somerset; a tiny village cut off by a big river with no bridge. When a man is swept away by the river in the early hours of Shrove Saturday, an explanation has to be found: accident, suicide or murder? The village priest, John Reve, is privy to many secrets in his role as confessor. But will he be able to unravel what happened to the victim, Thomas Newman, the wealthiest, most capable and industrious man in the village? And what will happen if he can’t?

Moving back in time towards the moment of Thomas Newman’s death, the story is related by Reve – an extraordinary creation, a patient shepherd to his wayward flock, and a man with secrets of his own to keep. Through his eyes, and his indelible voice, Harvey creates a medieval world entirely tangible in its immediacy.