Dark Earth

The new novel from the Costa-Award winning author of In The Days of Rain. When Blue and Isla's father, the legendary Seax Great Smith, dies in exile on his forge island, directly across the Thames from the ruined ghost city of Londinium, his daughters must leave the island and strike out on their own. Isla has a secret: she has learned her father's sophisticated sword making skills at a time when even entering a forge is forbidden to women. When the local Seax overlord discovers Isla's secret there is nowhere for the sisters to hide, except within the walls of the ghost city itself. Here Blue and Isla find a community of squatters, emigrants, travellers and looters, led by the mysterious Crowther, living in a ruined brothel and bathhouse called the Rookery. But trouble pursues them even into the haunted city. Dark Earth explores what it means to find kin in a world ruled by blood ties and blood feuds.