Book cover of The Angel's Mark

Book description

Longlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Historical Fiction Dagger, 2019

A Walter Scott Prize Academy Recommended Read 2019

'Rich, intelligent and dark in equal measure, leaving you wrung out with terror. Historical fiction at its most sumptuous.' Rory Clements
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Heresy. Conspiracy. Murder...

London, 1590: Amidst a tumultuous backdrop of…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Angel's Mark as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book, which I’ve just finished reading for the second time, going through the series once again.

On my first reading of this book, I realised that here was a brilliant writer whom I’d never come across before. The descriptions of London and elsewhere in the late 16th century are stunning. I never tire of this writer’s frequent and quite poetic use of simile to illustrate the appearance and qualities of objects, buildings, etc. in the book.

I enjoyed the "whodunnit" theme of the book as well as the many references to medicinal plants. The inclusion in the…

I loved this because there is a sense of foreboding from the beginning, and the horror builds. SW Perry pulls you into the dirt, grime, and grunge of Tudor London and the roughness of life at the end of the Tudor reign.

You are immersed in the sheer awfulness of medieval medicine and the arrogance of the people who led it. You can almost smell the streets and laboratories and hear Tudor London's din. I also loved it because the key characters are sympathetically developed and flawed.

Also, the dual point of view leads you to feel a sense of…

If you love The Angel's Mark...

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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