Company of Liars Company of Liars

Company of Liars

A Novel

    • 4.4 • 48 Ratings
    • $12.99

Publisher Description

In this extraordinary novel, Karen Maitland delivers a dazzling reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—an ingenious alchemy of history, mystery, and powerful human drama.

The year is 1348. The Black Plague grips the country. In a world ruled by faith and fear, nine desperate strangers, brought together by chance, attempt to outrun the certain death that is running inexorably toward them.

Each member of this motley company has a story to tell. From Camelot, the relic-seller who will become the group’s leader, to Cygnus, the one-armed storyteller . . . from the strange, silent child called Narigorm to a painter and his pregnant wife, each has a secret. None is what they seem. And one among them conceals the darkest secret of all—propelling these liars to a destiny they never saw coming.

Magical, heart-quickening, and raw, Company of Liars is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.

Praise for Company of Liars

“[Maitland] brings to life a medieval England of muddy streets and half-naked children fighting each other for pieces of dog dung to sell to the tanners, as sheep-stealers swing purple-faced from the gallows. . . . She neatly catches the spirit of primitive superstition that governed every aspect of 14th century life and then rolls on with it for her own story-telling ends. . . . Company of Liars is a richly evocative page-turner which brings to life a lost and terrible period of British history, with a disturbing final twist worthy of a master of the spine-tingler, such as Henry James.”Daily Express (UK)

“Transports readers back to the days of the Black Death . . . Paying homage to The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales, this is a gripping read. . . . As a reader you are taken as close to the plague as you would ever wish to go.”Bookseller

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2008
September 30
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
480
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
19.9
MB

Customer Reviews

finnagler ,

OH MY GOSH

Read this in two days, great book, wonderfully engrossing mystery with well crafted clues that didn’t give away too much too soon and a final twist I didn’t see coming, historically solid and set within the Black Plagues of the Dark Ages of Medieval England.

lotswifeone ,

Recommend this book

Excellent stories, characters.

Chririch70 ,

Company of Liars Great !!

A new fav for me.

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