The Book of Days

A breathtaking novel from an award-winning author set at the end of Henry VIII’s reign and the religious upheaval that followed

Things change; we have to recognise that; the world will not stay still. What we must hope is that the new is better and stronger than the old.

Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul.

As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. And as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of the village sense a dangerous freedom.

The Book of Days is a beautifully written novel of lives lived in troubled times and the solace to be found in nature and the turning seasons. 

Francesca Kay grew up in Southeast Asia and India, and has subsequently lived in Jamaica, the United States, Germany and now lives in Oxford. Her first novel, An Equal Stillness, won the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers, and her second novel, The Translation of the Bones, was longlisted for the 2012 Women's Prize for Fiction. Her third novel, The Long Room, was published in 2016; The Book of Days is her fourth.