Ill Will

‘An astonishing novel’ The Independent

I am William Lee: brute; liar, and graveside thief.

But you will know me by another name.

Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights, and is travelling across the moors to Liverpool in search of his past.

Along the way, he saves Emily, the foul-mouthed daughter of a Highwayman, from a whipping, and the pair journey on together.

Roaming from graveyard to graveyard, making a living from Emily’s apparent ability to commune with the dead, the pair lie, cheat and scheme their way across the North of England.

And towards the terrible misdeeds – and untold riches – that will one day send Heathcliff home to Wuthering Heights.

About the author

Michael Stewart is a multi-award winning writer, born and brought up in Salford, who moved to Yorkshire in 1995 and is now based in Bradford. He has written several full length stage plays, one of which, Karry Owky, was joint winner of the King’s Cross Award for New Writing. His debut novel, King Crow, was published in January 2011. It won the Guardian’s Not-the-Booker Award and has been selected as a recommended read for World Book Night.

He works as a is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield, where he is the director of the Huddersfield Literature Festival.