Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Western Wind: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Western Wind: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Western Wind: A Novel
    Ebook360 pages6 hours

    The Western Wind: A Novel

    By Samantha Harvey

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    An extraordinary new novel by Samantha Harvey—whose books have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), and the Guardian First Book Award—The Western Wind is a riveting story of faith, guilt, and the freedom of confession.

    It’s 1491. In the small village of Oakham, its wealthiest and most industrious resident, Tom Newman, is swept away by the river during the early hours of Shrove Saturday. Was it murder, suicide, or an accident? Narrated from the perspective of local priest John Reve—patient shepherd to his wayward flock—a shadowy portrait of the community comes to light through its residents’ tortured revelations. As some of their darkest secrets are revealed, the intrigue of the unexplained death ripples through the congregation. But will Reve, a man with secrets of his own, discover what happened to Newman? And what will happen if he can’t?

    Written with timeless eloquence, steeped in the spiritual traditions of the Middle Ages, and brimming with propulsive suspense, The Western Wind finds Samantha Harvey at the pinnacle of her outstanding novelistic power.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrove Press
    Release dateNov 13, 2018
    ISBN9780802146533
    Unavailable
    The Western Wind: A Novel
    Author

    Samantha Harvey

    Samantha Harvey has published two novels, The Wilderness and All Is Song. She has been short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Guardian First Book Award, and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She has also won the AMI Literature Award and the Betty Trask Prize. One of The Culture Show's 12 Best New British Novelists, she has contributed to Granta (print and online), has held a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, and is a member of the Academy for the Folio Prize. She lives in Bath, England, and teaches creative writing in the master's program at Bath Spa University.

    Read more from Samantha Harvey

    Related to The Western Wind

    Related ebooks

    Christian Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Until The Sea Closed Over Us And The Light Was Gone

      Jul 1, 2020

      —Dante, Canto XXVI But if the truth is dreamed of toward the morning—El Paso Although it was really last summer’s song,all this summer Despacito played on as slower then I turned myself to gazeupon Juarez. The summer everything hurts my eyes, a dozen

      6 min read

    • Article

      River Kismet

      Jul 21, 2020

      River Kismet
      9 min read

    • Article

      Spruces

      Mar 25, 2023

      Spruces
      9 min read

    • Article

      Stop Hating on Adjectives!

      Jun 12, 2019

      A common admonition in creative writing pedagogy is, “Cut as many adjectives as possible.” I propose that this rule springs from mere prejudice. The post Stop Hating on Adjectives! appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2019

      “My arm is so brown and so beautiful,” is a thought I haveas I’m about to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.I look at it a moment in the soft glow, and see it, briefly,as though it belonged to someone else. A reddishkind of brown, like a toasted almo

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Close Encounter With A Lion

      May 25, 2023

      My Dear Baker Mrs Oswell and myself thoroughly enjoyed our stay with you and your charming wife in June. It was a true pleasure for us both to renew old times and friendship. We trust that your trip to India will be a pleasant one, and the ship you a

      6 min read

    • Article

      Jumping the Rails

      Nov 16, 2020

      Jumping the Rails
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Twitch Upon The Thread

      Oct 17, 2019

      A Twitch Upon The Thread
      6 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Boatman And The Bear

      May 27, 2022

      The Boatman And The Bear
      9 min read

    • Article

      As the World Collapses

      Jul 27, 2017

      As the World Collapses
      7 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Guiding Presence

      May 18, 2020

      Guiding Presence
      7 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      I learned the world through the bottoms of my feet, barein the creeks of summer, stepping on pebbles, the squidgeof moss between my toes. On hot asphalt, the hop and skipover cracks, feet already toughened by bramble, dirt, the pricklyground of pine

      4 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Early such darkness, these oncoming nights& sure, I’m dull & even slow to concedehow mornings make equal, swerving measuresthere between those foremost shadowsalong the fence, amid the chickens & nerve,sheep & their indifference to any pair of foolsh

      3 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 1, 2022

      Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. —Adam Zagajewski, “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” tr. by Clare C

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Win For Arwen, Geese And Wigeon

      Dec 22, 2021

      Of every sort of adventure requiring a shotgun, nothing evokes a sense of history and place in quite the same way as wildfowling. This most ancient and noble shooting sport is rooted firmly in mankind’s hunter-gatherer past, when a longshore gunner b

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Bit Of TLC

      Mar 17, 2022

      Sam Llewellyn sails a 30ft ketch he rescued from dereliction It was a bright, breezy day in the yard. There was the sound of power tools and voices asking other voices to pass the paint, and could they borrow a wrench, and had they finished with the

      3 min read

    • Article

      Speak, Water

      Apr 1, 2021

      Speak, Water
      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      The painting is of a door, its wood so warpedwith moisture it cannot close. It stays ajar leaving a sliver of light—enough to suggestsomething sweet and almost unreachable behind the door—and you sit in yourroom working on the bills or those comforti

      4 min read

    • Article

      French Connection

      Sep 18, 2023

      French Connection
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Feb 25, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Feb 25, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Phillip B. Williams

      Dec 15, 2017

      The masters are yet dead. Wanting to be human,I tried to rewrite The Waste Land. The canon’s reachcasts ruinous light. The masters’ pens breachthis page where, above, my own hand spectates. Babylonrisen, exorcism in reverse, whose nature upended now?

      6 min read

    Reviews for The Western Wind

    3.5/5

    94 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      The characters were so well developed, I felt as if they were my own neighbors. An excellent slice of times past.
    • 3/5
      Horrible ending. Did not understand any of it. I would not read this again.
    • 1/5
      I finished this book and I still don't know what it was really about. Didn't care about the characters and found the ending confusing.
    • 5/5
      What a beautiful, brilliant book!Told in the first person by the priest of a hamlet that has found the body of its leading citizen/benefactor drowned. Starts on Day 4 Shrove (also Pancake) Tuesday 17th February, 1491 and moves backward in time, one day at a time.When I finished, I cleared my reading deck and took the time to read it backwards: Day 1 to 4. Just as brilliant.
    • 4/5
      A medieval Memento-meets-Rev whodunnit. The structure cleverly leads you to draw certain conclusions, but things are never that simple, are they? Critics have fairly pointed out there’s a missed opportunity to reward rereading by smuggling in more clues, but it’s fun enough all the same.