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Title details for Company of Liars by Karen Maitland - Available

Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland
Maxwell Caulfield
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 2 copies available
In this extraordinary novel, Karen Maitland delivers a dazzling reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—an ingenious alchemy of history, mystery, and powerful human drama.
The year is 1348. The Black Plague grips the country. In a world ruled by faith and fear, nine desperate strangers, brought together by chance, attempt to outrun the certain death that is running inexorably toward them.
Each member of this motley company has a story to tell. From Camelot, the relic-seller who will become the group’s leader, to Cygnus, the one-armed storyteller . . . from the strange, silent child called Narigorm to a painter and his pregnant wife, each has a secret. None is what they seem. And one among them conceals the darkest secret of all—propelling these liars to a destiny they never saw coming.
Magical, heart-quickening, and raw, Company of Liars is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.
Praise for Company of Liars
“[Maitland] brings to life a medieval England of muddy streets and half-naked children fighting each other for pieces of dog dung to sell to the tanners, as sheep-stealers swing purple-faced from the gallows. . . . She neatly catches the spirit of primitive superstition that governed every aspect of 14th century life and then rolls on with it for her own story-telling ends. . . . Company of Liars is a richly evocative page-turner which brings to life a lost and terrible period of British history, with a disturbing final twist worthy of a master of the spine-tingler, such as Henry James.”—Daily Express (UK)

“Transports readers back to the days of the Black Death . . . Paying homage to The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales, this is a gripping read. . . . As a reader you are taken as close to the plague as you would ever wish to go.”—Bookseller

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 30, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415957745
      • File size: 508985 KB
      • Duration: 17:40:23

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Karen Maitland's novel, set in medieval England, features a motley cast--including a one-eyed relics dealer, a musician and his apprentice, and a young girl who reads runes--each of whom has something to hide. While much of the writing suffers from clichés and pretensions, the characters are richly drawn, and Maxwell Caulfield gives each one a uniquely magnificent voice, whatever the gender or accent of the speaker. Even minor characters get the full treatment. While the novel will likely interest only fans of historical fantasy, Caulfield's performance transcends the limits of the genre and gives the story an extra dimension. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 25, 2008
      Desperate to outrun the Black Death ravaging England during the sodden summer of 1348, nine disparate souls band together in this harrowing historical, which infuses a Canterbury Tales
      scenario with the spectral chill of an M. Night Shyamalan ghost story. Maitland (The White Room
      ) gives each of the travelers a potentially devastating secret. How did narrator Camelot, a glib-tongued peddler of false relics and hope, really come by that hideously scarred face? What is magician Zophiel hiding inside his wagon? And just who is Narigorm, the spooky albino girl whose readings of the runes are always eerily on target? As the nine strangers slog cross-country through the pestilential landscape, their number shrinking one by one, they come to realize that what they don't know about each other might just kill them. Despite Maitland's yarn-spinning prowess, her narrative occasionally stalls because of unrelenting grimness and an increasingly predictable plot—that is, until its gasp-out-loud finale.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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