Nicked
A Novel
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- 9,49 €
Description de l’éditeur
AN NPR NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous, slyly funny, and delightfully queer work of historical fantasy, based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint
"[An] uproarious saga . . . drawing on contemporary accounts, fantastical folk tales, and [Anderson's] own knack for high jinks."—New York Times Book Review
"[A] rollicking comic novel."—NPR
The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.
Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,” will be his guide.
What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, a meditation on the miraculous, and a monastic meet-cute, filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
YA author Anderson (Feed) makes an auspicious adult debut with this rollicking tale of 11th-century relic hunters. After Brother Nicephorus, a Benedictine monk in the pox-riddled Italian city of Bari, has a dream about St. Nicholas, the archbishop orders him to travel to Myra, in the Byzantine Empire, to procure the saint's bones, which are reputed to leak a mysterious liquid that can heal those afflicted with the disease. Accompanied by legendary relic hunter Tyun and his dog-man sidekick, Reprobus, Nicephorus sets sail for Myra, only to discover they are in a race with a rival crew of Venetian relic hunters. After reaching Myra, Nicephorus and company experience many setbacks on their way to disinter the bones from the basilica where they are guarded. Anderson stocks the exhilarating narrative with sea battles, comely spies, duels, and double crosses, and succeeds at transporting the reader back to 11th-century Italy and Byzantium. Readers will be swept up in this marvelous adventure.
