THE GALLOWS CURSE

What Karen Maitland says about The Gallows Curse:

My latest solo publication is The Gallows' Curse, published by Penguin on in March 2011, with the paperback edition due in February 2012 (and already available for advance order from Amazon UK). It's set in the reign of King John, when the whole of England was under sentence of excommunication (among other issues, King John wouldn't accept the Pope's choice of Archbishop). Can you imagine the chaos - all the churches closed, King John in retaliation arresting every priest who hadn't fled and the people terrified of dying in sin without the last rites? No burials were permitted on consecrated land, no marriages were conducted, no babies baptized. But I don't want to reveal much more, except to say the plot involves people-trafficking, murder and, oh yes... a very feisty dwarf and a eunuch with a hunger for revenge.

"Maitland has created another tour de force, dark and woven with the supernatural, which is highly readable and meticulously researched..."

Daily Mail

"The pages fairly fly by, ... a tale which fairly rattles along with good solid storytelling.

"And one of the book's great successes is that Maitland has conveyed an excellent sense of the superstition and casual brutality which must have been the lot of so many."

Eastern Daily Press

"...perhaps her richest yet..."

Metro

• Read an interview with Karen Maitland about The Gallows Curse on the Big Thrill website;
• watch a video on Waterstone's website in which Karen talks about the book with Sarah Sargant, the winner of a Waterstone's competition organised to celebrate its launch;
• listen to a podcast from the Reading Room in which Karen talks about The Gallows Curse (and why she grows thyme in my garden);
• Karen's guest post at the History Girls blog will tell you some useful things to do with eels!
• or read the Prologue to The Gallows' Curse.

Editions Sonatine have bought the French translation rights.

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