LEARWIFE

One of 1500 numbered copies of the first edition (unsigned), our review copy was an early number 167 which may make this Canongate November 2021 edition collectable in the future. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived - Lear's queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten, now she can tell her story. Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice, one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey rests. 'I am the queen of two crowns, banished fifteen years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three small animals, now gone. I am fifty five years old. I am Lear's wife. I am here.' A seductive, gorgeous and fresh perspective on an age-old tale, this novel won the Observer Best Debut Novelist of 2021. A beautifully lyrical novel, 328pp with decorated page edges. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.