A Wild & True Relation

Author(s): Kim Sherwood

Location(s): Devon

Genre(s): Historical, Fiction

Era(s): From the eighteenth century to the present day

A thrilling feminist adventure story of smuggling and myth-making.

‘This book is a rarity – a novel as remarkable for the vigour of the storytelling as for its literary ambition. Kim Sherwood is a writer of capacity, potency and sophistication’ HILARY MANTEL

‘I loved this tremendous book and devoured it in two days. Vividly imagined, relentlessly entertaining, rich and resonant in scope and context, it’s both a thrilling adventure and a vital witness to women’s voices’ EMMA STONEX, author of The Lamplighters

A Wild & True Relation opens during the Great Storm of 1 703, as smuggler Tom West confronts his lover Grace for betraying him to the Revenue. Leaving Grace’s cottage in flames, he takes her orphaned daughter Molly on board ship disguised as a boy to join his crew. But Molly, or Orlando as she must call
herself, will grow up to outshine all the men of Tom’s company and seek revenge – and a legacy – all of her own. Woven into Molly’s story are the writers – from Celia Fiennes and George Eliot to Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens – who are transfixed by her myth and who, over three centuries, come together
to solve the mystery of her life. With extraordinary verve, Sherwood remakes the eighteenth-century novel and
illuminates women’s writing and women’s roles throughout history.

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