Book description
It is, perhaps, the fifteenth century and the ordered tranquillity of
a Mediterranean island is about to be shattered by the appearance of
two outsiders: one, a castaway, plucked from the sea by fishermen,
whose beliefs represent a challenge to the established order; the
other, a child abandoned by her mother and suckled by wolves, who
knows nothing of the precarious relationship between Church and State
but whose innocence will become the subject of a dangerous experiment.
But the arrival of the Inquisition on the island creates a darker,
more threatening force which will transform what has been a
philosophical game of chess into a matter of life and death...
Jill Paton Walsh was educated at St Michael's Convent, North
Finchley, and at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is the author of several
highly praised adult novels: Lapsing, A School For Lovers, Knowledge of
Angels, which was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize, Goldengrove
Unleaving, The Serpentine Cave and A Desert in Bohemia. She has also won
many awards for her children's literature, including the Whitbread
Prize, the Universe Prize and the Smarties Award. She has three children
and lives in Cambridge.
